Sunderland coach Nick Allamby leaves club as last member of Phil Parkinson's backroom team departs

Sunderland's specialist fitness coach Nick Allamby has left Wearside to take up a new role at Championship side Middlesbrough. Allamby was part of the backroom team brought to the Academy of Light by former manager Phil Parkinson in 2019, and he was the final member of Parkinson's staff still at the club.

He was hired as Sunderland's physical performance coach in November 2019, and his remit included working with the medical team, the coaching team, and the sports science department, to get the most out of the players on matchday. Allamby had previously worked with Parkinson at Bolton Wanderers and Bradford City.

On matchdays part of Allamby's job was to conduct the warm-up with the players and when Parkinson was sacked in November 2020, that continued under his successor Lee Johnson. Allamby was one of a number of players and staff who contracted Covid at the beginning of January before returning to work later in the month.

But there has been no sign of him on matchdays in recent weeks, and ChronicleLive understands that Sunderland's home win against Portsmouth on January 22 was the last game he worked and he left the club before Johnson was sacked and Alex Neil took over. Sunderland have not made any official announcement concerning his departure, but he has already begun work at Middlesbrough.

It is a return to Teesside for Markse-based Allamby, who was previously Boro's head of sports science and conditioning before leaving that role to link up with Parkinson at Bradford in 2010. Allamby was one of four coaches brought to Sunderland, the others being assistant manager Steve Parkin, goalkeeping coach Lee Butler, and first team coach Andrew Taylor.

Parkin and Butler are still working with Parkinson, who is now