Bradley Simmonds dreamed of playing at Wembley, but had to settle for training the likes of Jordan Henderson, Theo Walcott and John Terry instead when injury curtailed his career.

A serious knee injury ended the former QPR youth team player’s hopes of making it as a professional footballer, but Simmonds harnessed the power of social media to become one of the most sought after personal trainers for top players.

The Instagram star, who has 241,000 followers on the social media platform, took part in a panel discussion on athlete welfare at the 2018 Yahoo Sports Technology Awards in Camden last week.

Simmonds often works with players ahead of their gruelling pre-season sessions, getting them in shape so that they don’t befall the same fate as him.

He enjoys the work he does, but admitted that his passion still lies with football.

He said: “Things happen for a reason, but it wasn’t easy because my passion was to be a footballer and that would probably still be my passion today.

“I remember being at my secondary school I could see Wembley from my window so I thought I would play there one day.

“Obviously because I learnt so much when I was injured it was easy to go into personal training and I do miss football, but I’m very hungry to crack on with something else.

“Social media has been huge for me, having access from your phone and gaining new relationships and clients is ridiculously good.

“I built my whole career around Instagram, so it’s very powerful.”

Simmonds trains a whole host of Championship players as well and explains that he offers a more light-hearted approach to training that players might find at their clubs.

He said: “Footballers sometimes like to do their own thing so they can relax and have a bit of banter with a personal trainer.

“It’s the fact that you have one-one and you’re in the comfort of your own home.

“They can wear what they want, they can wake up when they want, it’s very easy and they get a really good session without the manager asking questions.

“It’s very relaxed for them and it puts them in a position where they’re potentially doing more work than their fellow players

“I recently trained Jordan Henderson who is obviously a great guy, he’s done really well in the Champions League.

“When Arsenal was closed doors, Theo had no one to train with so he called me, phoned me, messaged on Instagram and asked me to train him.

“I’m sure I’ll get a lot of messages as pre-season approaches.”

This year was the fifth cycle of the STAs, which enjoys ever-increasing global support from all facets of the international sports sector. For more information about the Sports Technology Awards, visit www.sportstechnologyawards.com