Adrian Forbes Embarks on Unprecedented Role as Head Coach and Sporting Director of Texoma FC, a Club Yet to Form a Squad

Adrian Forbes departed from Luton Town in April, a move he previously characterized as “bitter sweet.” In the realm of football, many unusual choices occur, but few are perhaps as peculiar as taking on a role with a non-existent team. This, however, is the precise situation for Adrian Forbes, a former midfielder for Norwich City, Luton Town, and Swansea City, who is now the inaugural sporting director of Texoma FC. The 45-year-old resigned from his position as lead coach at Luton’s academy to join a club in the United States that currently lacks any players. Texoma FC is slated to compete in USL League One next season, and Forbes’ responsibilities extend beyond recruiting players for the squad; he now also holds the dual role of head coach. Forbes informed BBC Radio Norfolk, “I’m now building the squad to actually coach the squad as well, something you’d never see in the UK.” He added, “I don’t know if I can sack myself – if I get a few games in and we haven’t won, I’ll have to have an interesting conversation with myself.” Adrian Forbes commenced his professional playing career at Norwich City, where he made over 100 appearances. Forbes dedicated five “really good” years to the coaching staff at Luton, undertaking various capacities, including age-groups coach, first-team coach, and briefly, assistant to then-manager Nathan Jones. The opportunity to relocate across the Atlantic arose in what manner? Forbes recounted, “Randomly I just got a message on LinkedIn from a gentleman over in Texas. He mentioned about starting a new team and they wanted to create a link between Luton Town and this new franchise in the US called Texoma FC.” He continued, “I thought ‘I’ll try and reach out to the right people at Luton to see if that was something they’d be interested in, but it coincided with the time where Luton were trying to get promoted and reach that holy grail of the Premier League, so any outside noise at that time wasn’t going to be relevant.” Forbes subsequently informed Texoma that the proposed link-up would not materialize, but he was unexpectedly offered the sporting director position, which he described as “too good an opportunity to turn down.” While relocating to the US is undeniably an exciting prospect for many, Forbes has since encountered the practical challenges awaiting him in Sherman, Texas. He stated, “We are in the middle of building absolutely everything. We kick-off in probably the first or second weekend in March and my first job is to sign a player.” He added, “We have staff that are working alongside myself, but we don’t currently have any players, so that’s the most important thing for me at the moment.” He concluded, “We’ve got the key facilities around the stadium, training facilities, everything you would need to have and run a club, but at present we don’t have that squad.” Despite some reluctance from his extended family regarding his relocation, Forbes intends to convince players from England to join him. He remarked, “That’s been something I looked at straight away.” He continued, “I’m going to throw myself into it to make sure it is a better life we can create out here. And I see it as exactly the same for the players.” He emphasized, “There are some really good opportunities for players to come over here to develop.” Following his playing stints with Luton and Swansea, Forbes subsequently played for Blackpool, Millwall, and Grimsby, concluding his career with a final period at non-league Lowestoft Town. Simon Keizer and Ben Watson, the club’s co-owners, are also responsible for cultivating a fanbase. Forbes further explained, “We are 45 minutes north of Dallas in a small place called Sherman, population just short of 50,000 people, but there’s a lot of key areas outside of Sherman itself and hopefully we’ll be getting a lot of buy-in from those communities as well.” He elaborated, “The problem you have over here is soccer isn’t as big an entity as American Football. That’s a fact, and you’re trying to build a team in an area that has never had professional soccer before. So there’s a lot of education going on behind the scenes… the club want to be really prominent in the community as well.” Texoma is set to compete in what is essentially the third tier of US football, and Forbes acknowledges that it will be a “long way into the future” before the club could consider joining Major League Soccer. He clarified, “There is no promotion and relegation, so at this specific moment in time, it is an impossibility for this club to get into the MLS.” He continued, “Everything over here is franchise-based so if you’ve got the money, you can pay to go to that next level, but not on to the MLS – I don’t know if I could see them jumping on board but that would be the icing on the cake.” Forbes concedes that adapting to American life has not consistently been “a walk in the park.” Initially, Texoma will utilize a school stadium for matches before transitioning to their dedicated, purpose-built facility within a few years. Nevertheless, he expresses enthusiasm for the “excitement of being part of building everything from the bottom up,” with the aim of creating a club with “longevity.” He further stated, “I’m not going to sugarcoat it. There’s been times where I’ve gone ‘have I made the right decision?'” He concluded, “But when we get to that first game at the stadium… knowing you’ve been part of not only signing the players, building out the roster as they call it over here, but also coaching and developing them is going to be a really surreal moment.” He expressed his aspiration: “I hope I can produce a team that fans will be excited to come and watch, a team where fans can look at players and go ‘I can see myself in that hard-working individual there’, ‘I can see myself in that person that’s just put that tackle in’ – and that’s what’s going to be important to me in trying to build a team that the community and my owners can be proud of.” Forbes commenced his playing career at Norwich City and, to this day, states he is unaware of the reasons for his departure in 2001. He commented, “My wife and I have laughed about it. Who knows one day what individuals back at Norwich might be looking at and thinking ‘we let this person leave our club and look what he’s gone on the achieve’,” adding, “That’s also important to me because I want to be taken seriously in this role.”