By Lee Herron, Community Trust Manager
Earlier this year, myself and Community Coach Chris Sweetman attended the National Soccer Coaches Association Of America's convention over in Baltimore. It is the biggest gathering of football coaches in the world.

The UK was represented by the likes of Manchester United, West Ham United, Bolton Wanderers and ourselves, and there were speakers such as Gerard Houllier and Steve McClaren, who gave tips on sessions to US coaches.

Events like this have a big benefit to our Community Trust. The convention was a chance for us to really network and spread the good word of Reading FC. The US is a growing market for football, or soccer as they know it, and it was good to get an idea of the work that could be done there in the future.

One of the big benefits to the wider position of the club is that by going out there to work we can help spread the Reading FC brand throughout the US and take our soccer schools coaching over there.

We've started that already by setting up courses which we'll run over the summer in Texas, New Jersey, and Georgia.

Sometimes we take for granted the impact that English football has abroad, but you don't really appreciate just how important we are to them until you see it for yourself.

As I said, we want to get Reading Football Club's name out there as much as possible, and there's already a knowledge of us from the links we've got through Bobby Convey and Marcus Hahnemann.

For us to go over there, speak to new contacts and establish connections, the fact we have the starting point of Bobby and Marcus has made the process much easier for us. We're already well recognised, probably more than we realised until we got there.

Football in the US is currently undergoing a period of exciting growth. And we want to help with the expansion of football over there, it's a massive market to be involved in. And we also want to have a presence there for any talented players who come through the system that the club might want to recruit in the future.

Lots of the clubs we've spoken to are already feeder clubs for the MLS, and the talent levels are certainly on the up out there. If we can get our hands on any budding youngster who the Reading coaching staff think can make the grade, that would be a huge bonus.

We want to do as much work as we possibly can without it affecting what we do here in Reading, because that's our core work. But there is definitely a place for us over there.

And it's not just the US where we are focussing our attention in terms of working abroad. Last year we set up links in Bermuda, by working with Pembroke Hamilton FC, and we'll be building on those foundations in 2008.

We'll be give them an opportunity to come and visit us in Reading. Last year the Bermudans came over and we looked after them by showing them coaching methods and games.

And we're looking to start work in Canada, France and Germany, trying to go as global as we can to spread the brand of the club.