The boss at St George’s Park, the home of the England football team, grew up wanting to be a vet she has revealed.

Holly Murdoch loved animals but has admitted she would never have made the grades needed. It was, however, a job in hospitality at a racecourse that was to set her on the path to eventually take on the top role at St George’s in Tatenhill, near Burton.

St George’s Park is the Football Association's national football centre, where all England sides are based and train. Stars such as Harry Kane, Dele Alli and Jamie Vardy are often spotted there. And Holly Murdoch is the managing director of the home of the influential venue.

Now she has taken part in a Meet the Leader event, which see business leaders from the Burton area put in spotlight and talking candidly about their jobs and backgrounds.

She took part in the third Burton Mail and Else Solicitors’ ‘Meet the Leaders’ event, along with Noreen Oliver, the chief executive officer of the Burton Addiction Centre.

Holly Murdoch is the general manager at St George's Park

This, the third event of its kind, was designed to give business people from around the area the chance to hear from many leaders from the area. They take part in a question and answer session which was hosted by Dave Bryon.

The pair discussed the path their careers have taken them on to get to where they are, along with their key pieces of advice to those in the audience, at The Mulberry, at Burton and South Derbyshire College, in Burton.

The first event, in November, saw more than 70 young professionals attend to hear from Burton Albion Football Club chairman Ben Robinson and club manager Nigel Clough.

Medical bosses from Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the body that oversees Queen’s Hospital in Burton were up second in the January event.

They were Magnus Harrison, the medical director of the trust, and lead nurse Paula Gardner who both revealed how finding a perfect working and home life balance was key to being happy, professionally and personally.

Holly Murdoch is the general manager at St George’s Park, and holds a degree in French and Hispanic studies from Swansea University.

She has worked in many commercial marketing roles at Hereford, Chepstow and then became the general manager for the racecourse Bath Fontwell where she oversaw a team of 200 members of staff, before moving to St George’s Park in 2012.

Mrs Murdoch has recently returned to work following the birth of her first child, Oliver.

St George's Park
St George's Park

Speaking at the ‘meet the leader’ event, she said that at an early age she never once had any intention of moving into a career in management.

“As a child, growing up in school I wanted to be a vet,” she began, “I loved horses and animals, but I just wasn’t clever enough. I would have never got the grades to go to veterinary school.

“I had to have that awkward conversation with my parents and my teachers where they said, ‘you’re not going to make it unfortunately’. I was quite good at languages, and I can honestly say that at the age of 16 when you’re choosing your A-Levels, it’s so hard. How do you know what you want out of your life.

“So I just went for jobs that I was quite good at, to do A-Levels and to go on to University. I went and did a degree, but I wasn’t really passionate about using languages. While I was there I saw it was literature-based, and it was quite hard going.

“I found a love for sales and marketing through a course I did during my degree. Because I was conscious about what I was going to do afterwards. I did an NVQ in entrepreneurial skills and I was really good at it.

“I did a gap year as part of my course, I went and worked for a year. I was conscious that I needed more on my CV. I worked for a logistics company, who paid my expenses and I worked for free. I learnt a lot about how business worked and I was just a bit nosy.

“When I came back to do my finals, I knew I wanted to do a job in marketing.”

She then explained how she spent time calling up a number of recruiters attempting to break into working life and looking for somebody to give her a chance.

This chance came from a racecourse for Northern Racing, where she was selling hospitality packages for ‘the races’.

It was here where she first got into sport, saw her aspirations evolve and eventually even received a full time role.

Mrs Murdoch added: “I was always fiercely ambitious when growing up, I always wanted to be the best at everything, and it’s one of my downfalls as well because sometimes you can’t be the best at everything.

“No-one’s ever going to just give you stuff, you need to get out there and put yourself forward and put yourself out for opportunities.

“Let people see how ambitious and special you are.”

Mrs Murdoch spoke passionately about the positive chances she faced working at Northern Racing, who would develop workers from within and saw her rise up the ranks.

At 25, she became one of the youngest racecourse managers in the country, an achievement she was deeply proud of – to manage a facility which housed around 10,000 people on a race-day.

She received a lot of on-site training and the chance to develop her skills and abilities.

She continued to explain the traits of her personality that she believes added her success in her professional life: “I’m quite a positive person and put a positive spin on most things, I worked really hard over the last 12 years to get the job I have got today.

“It didn’t just land on my lap, I remember when I first started working in racing I was so determined to do well and I put the hours in.

“It was also about doing the extra mile and people noticing that I was good. There were days when it did go horrendously wrong.

“There were days when I have learnt from so many mistakes, particularly as my career developed and I started to become ‘the boss’ and making final decisions.

“I’ve made some shockers, but I’ve managed to keep my job through them. I’ve just learned from my mistakes and that’s the best way to learn.

“I tell the young people who work at St George’s Park when things are going wrong that we can always fix mistakes, and make it work.

“The tough days have definitely made me stronger.”

At the next ‘meet the leader’ event, Shaun Chilton, the CEO of Clinigen group and Paul Faulkner, CEO of Birmingham Chamber of Commerce Group, will be in the spotlight.

Tickets are free and available online at http://elsesolicitors.eventbrite.com , with the event running between 5.30pm and 7.30pm on Thursday, May 3.

What is St George’s Park?

It is a £105 million facility, set in 330 acres of Staffordshire countryside, and is home to England’s 28 national teams, it says on the St George’s Park website.

There are 13 outdoor pitches, including a replica of the Wembley surface, a full-size indoor 3G pitch, a suite of rehabilitation and sports science areas, and an indoor futsal sports hall. St George’s Park provides world-class facilities for all England teams ahead of international fixtures, said a spokesman.

It is also the home of FA Education and delivers all FA national coach education courses.

Sports science and performance is integral to St George’s Park. The Performance Centre is a bespoke sports medicine, rehabilitation and human performance facility which combines cutting-edge technology with elite medical expertise, it says on the website.

Visitors to the site can enjoy world class facilities and impressive accommodation with a 228-bedroom hotel catering for individuals, groups or team bookings, along with major sporting or business conferences and banquets, it adds.