Coach's Biography: Roy Rolsten

This football obsessed fanatic was born in Manchester, raised in Stockton-on-Tees, educated at Sunderland University and then returned to Teesside as a civil servant.
I bought my first house a few years ago and moved in with my fiance Roisin in March 2010. We got married on 7th May 2011 - the same day the team I was a season ticket holder for Darlington were playing at Wembley and went on to lift the non-league FA Trophy! Then in September 2012 we were happy to announce the birth of our daughter Emily who will no doubt try to distract me from all football management games!

And she has. Many a time over the last two and a half years I've had to down tools to go and cuddle/feed/dummy up the little tyke. Additionally as a long term Evertonian it seems Emily only seems to like watching 'that team in red' grrrr! 

Well, Emily is now 3yrs and sleepng better, she's also more active and has a strange addiction to Lego Darth Vader (she hasn't seen the films, just the cartoons where he's a comedy figure) 

I started on MSWL Utd taking over a Forest side that had dropped to the foot of the whole league and over the course of 16 seasons made it once into the top flight. I saw Nottingham Forest play many years ago when they visited Darlington's old ground Feethams and played in the first leg of the League Cup at 8pm on a Tuesday night in the pouring rain. It was full to capacity - shoulder to shoulder on the terraces and despite going on to beat Forest in the 2nd leg the highlight of the day was definitely seeing Romanian international Dan Petrescu going flat on his face as he skidded through the puddles on the wing.

And now I've taken on the reigns at Swansea City. I've seen Swansea play quite a few times from about a decade ago when they were in League Two and visiting Darlington. They had one of the most talented players to play outside the Premiership at the time Lee Trundle he scored 78 goals in 146 appearances over 4 years and is now a youth team coach there.