Playing football at a semi-pro level in the late 1990s, a young Kevin Thelwell started mopping up FA and UEFA coaching badges to go with his degree in sports science.
At that point, playing on muck heaps and in front of two men and a dog, there was no telling where the journey might take him, if anywhere at all.
But he knew that a career in football was something he wanted to pursue. Before he had even turned 30, Thelwell had already started to take some significant steps forward.
In 1998, a new role with the Welsh FA saw him oversee the delivery of coaching courses and, for the next seven years, he cut his teeth in professional football.
In the summer of 2005, Billy Davies headhunted Thelwell to become the new head of youth at Preston North End.
Clearly impressed by what he had seen, Davies took Thelwell with him to Derby County just a year later.
Kevin Thelwell will be the new sporting director at Rangers when he leaves Everton
Thelwell worked with Sean Dyche at Everton and they managed to save the club from relegation
Still only 32 years old at the time, Thelwell became the youngest academy manager in English football when he took the role at Pride Park. But it was when he joined Wolverhampton Wanderers in 2009 that his career really began to take off.
All in all, he spent 11 years with Wolves, experiencing plenty of highs and lows before leaving for a new challenge to join New York Red Bulls in 2020.
After two years in the Big Apple, Thelwell was hungry for another bite at the Premier League and returned as Everton’s new sporting director in 2022.
His three years at Goodson Park were pockmarked by all kinds of financial restraints which pre-dated his time at the club, and it was announced last month that Thelwell is to leave at the end of the season.
All of which now looks like it will bring him to a new chapter in Glasgow with Rangers. Seeking to appoint a new sporting director, Rangers identified Thelwell as the man they wanted.
The 51-year-old Englishman has already been in and had the tour of Ibrox as well as the club’s training facility at Auchenhowie.
And now Thelwell will soon be dusting off the club suit, straightening his tie, and polishing a pair of the famous brown brogues.
But what can Rangers fans expect from him if, as expected, he is handed the task of reshaping and restructuring the entire football department?
Now Thelwell will have his work cut out at Ibrox as he looks to turn around Rangers’ fortunes
Well, one thing is for sure. Given the depth of experience he has in the role as a sporting director, Thelwell has proven he is more than capable of working in difficult circumstances.
During the early part of his time with Wolves, the club suffered a double relegation, plummeting from the Premier League all the way down to League One in the blink of an eye.
In terms of a rebuild, that was a fairly major operation. Thelwell started off as academy manager at Molineux, then head of football development and recruitment, before becoming sporting director.
Across his various roles, he worked alongside managers such as Mick McCarthy, Kenny Jackett, Paul Lambert and Nuno Espírito Santo.
It was under Nuno where things really began to take off, with the club winning promotion back to the Premier League in 2018 before going on to establish themselves as a fixture once again in the top flight.
It was the influx of Portuguese players around this time that proved key to much of what Wolves were doing under their Chinese owners. The influence of ‘super-agent’ Jorge Mendes, whose clients include Jose Mourinho and Cristiano Ronaldo, was something which Thelwell had to manage.
But it was at Wolves where his work in the academy really began to shone through — and a focus on youth development is something which remains a key part of his philosophy.
Speaking to VSI Executive Education podcast last year, Thelwell said: ‘Does the style of play run throughout the club and into the academy? Yeah, we’re trying to do that.
Thelwell had a good relationship with Dyche… and will look to do the same with whoever manages Rangers next season
‘To quote Dan Ashworth when he worked at the FA, the only thing that changes should be the size of the shirt.
‘The clearer we are in terms of how we want the game to be played, the clearer the players are about that, the easier it should make it for those players to move through the age groups and through this pipeline.
‘The academy is definitely a key part of the strategy. In my opinion, it should be a key part of every football club’s strategy.
‘I’m a big believer because I came through this route, I started as an academy manager, so I’m a big believer in giving young people, young players, opportunities.’
Over the past decade or so, Red Bull have built one of the most well-run footballing empires on the planet. Built on data and innovative scouting methods, that approach left a lasting impact on Thelwell after he worked as New York Red Bulls head of sport for two years between 2020-22.
On the influence of data in football, he said: ‘I’ve been really lucky to have gone to New York and had that experience, especially with the Red Bull group.
‘They are very strong at Red Bull around data, but also in the States, where they’ve got a strong data perspective.
‘I had two-and-a-bit years working very closely with data and seeing how that could not only impact New York, but also how it had an impact across the group.
‘Coming to Everton, we’ll have regular reviews and conversations around what the data is telling us. If we have a performance problem, let’s not go on gut instinct.
‘Let’s have a broader conversation around it, and generally, it’s best to go to the insights team first, to communicate to them what we think the performance problem is and help them to help us make more informed decisions.’
After the problems that Thelwell faced at Wolves following the double relegation, life at Everton hasn’t really been much easier.
The club have been plagued by Financial Fair Play issues over the past few years due to reckless spending which again pre-dated his time on Merseyside.
Everton were hit with an eight-point deduction last season. It was only thanks to the work of Thelwell and manager Sean Dyche that they managed to avoid relegation.
‘Dyche and Thelwell both deserved a lot of credit for keeping Everton up,’ one source tells Mail Sport.
‘They were constantly fighting fires and basically operating with one hand tied behind their back due to all the financial restraints.
‘If you ask most Evertonians, I think most of them would probably say that, all things considered, Thelwell has done a very decent job over the past three years.
‘The wage bill and net spend were horrific when he came in, but he’s worked through that. In terms of his signings, there’s been more hits than misses. The recruitment has been steadily improving over the past couple of years.
‘Last summer, they signed Iliman Ndiaye and Jake O’Brien from clubs in France. Both of them have turned out to be good signings for not huge money.
‘Thelwell knows the type of markets in which he can shop and, crucially, where to look. Whether it’s him or the scouts he works with, there’s an eye for a player.
‘Everton also did brilliantly well to hold on to Jarrad Branthwaite last summer when Manchester United were coming in with big offers. Thelwell did well in all of that.’
Working with a set budget will be a key part of the remit at Rangers, albeit there is likely to be increased finance made available if and when the proposed takeover goes through.
On the issues he faced at Everton, Thelwell added: ‘I’m not the greatest mathematician in the world, I’m not that brilliant at that side of things.
‘But the reality is, you can’t spend more than you earn. So bringing us back into some sort of financial balance and applying that common sense is a big part of the job.
‘That’s the same for sporting directors across the world. So the two big rocks within my remit are financial balance, and then start to build something that people can believe in out on the pitch.’
As and when Thelwell gets started at Rangers, the only way is up after yet another season of abject failure.
Having to work with one hand tied behind his back at times with Everton, he’s no stranger to a challenge.
But resurrecting the fortunes of Rangers looks like it could be his greatest challenge yet. The man who built his reputation at Wolves now has the task of reawakening the Bears.
