Kurt Herd is 34 and managing Dominica’s national side, but the job is much bigger than that. He is the only Scottish manager currently leading an international men's side, and the only full-time staff member with Dominica. Appointed permanently in August after a short-term stint, Herd says the scale of the work leaves him doing almost everything himself.

Herd's workload in Dominica

"I'm doing everything at the minute," Herd told BBC Sport. He also described the role as "relentless", which is hardly a surprise when one person is covering coaching, recruitment, analysis and the day-to-day running of a national team.

Dominica are ranked 182nd in the world and have an island population of around 65,000. Most of their players compete in the domestic league, which Herd roughly compares to Scotland's League 2. Against that backdrop, one full-time staff member is not a quirky detail, it is the reality of the set-up.

Herd's own description of the job is stark. "And it has to be me that drives that change. And I have to show people why we're doing it and how we're doing it," he said. The assistant coach still has a school-teaching job while the team are in camp, which tells you how thin the staffing is.

Recruitment and the next step

The search for players is as manual as the rest of the job. Herd said: "I sit on Instagram for two or three hours and I'm just looking at player profiles, trying to see if somebody's got a little Dominica flag in that bio page." He added that he is constantly on the phone and scanning profiles and databases, with people in the US, Canada, Europe and the UK helping to contact clubs, agents and players.

That network matters because Dominica can only field six overseas players. A rule change in January will let Herd recruit players with Dominican grandparents, which should widen the pool a bit. He has already identified Shamal George, now at Bromley, through social media and talent-spotters.

The bigger point is that Herd is still building the job while trying to build a career. He has worked in Sweden, Australia, Malaysia and Kyrgyzstan, left Scotland for Australia without a job after graduating from Abertay University, and says he wants a future club role at as high a level as possible. "I want this on a daily basis. I want that pressure. I want that day-to-day grind," he said.

Dominica compete in the Concacaf Nations League B this autumn, with Herd still trying to push change through a programme that has very little margin for error.

Written by Sam Whitfield with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 1 outlet. How we work →