Football is an addictive game but also a volatile one, and it is a desire for long-term stability that has led Lee Fearn to leave the coalface at Carlisle United after four eventful seasons.

The sports science and conditioning coach, a key part of the backroom set-up since 2014, says it was the hardest decision of his working life to walk away from Brunton Park.

Fearn is instead pursuing what he describes as an exciting new challenge in a different profession having ended his time with the Blues.

There was no suggestion that his position might have been under threat at Brunton Park, he says, nor is his departure linked to that of Keith Curle and the other coaches who have gone.

Rather, it was after considering "a million and one" factors after a period of personal reflection.

Family is a major one. Fearn and his partner, having moved from his native East Midlands in 2014, are now firmly settled in Carlisle. Having joined the Blues under Graham Kavanagh that year, he says that, even then, he realised a career in the game may not be a long-term choice.

"When I was at Coventry I saw some redundancies and that made you sit up," he says. "I was then fortunate to go to West Brom and later made a decision to seek a new challenge at Notts County.

"It was a step out of my comfort zone, although I don't regret it in the slightest. You have these thoughts of being head of department and so on, so when a new manager comes in and at the end of the season and disposes of your services, it does open your eyes massively, and you see the effect that has on your family.

"I've known other peers who have lost their jobs in football for reasons that had nothing to do with the quality of their work.

"At that point I realised it might not be a career forever."

Fearn stresses, in this, that he loved working for Carlisle, loved helping to get players into the best possible condition, loved the competitive nature of a job in first-team football, loved putting his sports science knowledge into front-line practice with the Blues.

But, he adds, "there are times in life where you think something is just as or more important. I'm big on family, and you do get to a point where you think they have to take a priority in your life.

"That's one of the main reasons for my decision. You see a lot of hard times in football, and a lot of things that happen behind the scenes that maybe disillusion you. The hours are very long, although I'm never shy of hard work - to my knowledge nobody put more hours into the club over the last four years.

"But there are so many reasons. You just get to a point where you feel the time is right, everything adds up and it's time for a change."

Fearn is eager to praise the man who hired him, Kavanagh. The Irishman's managerial reign was not a success but he was the first United boss to bring in someone with Fearn's specific background and remit, to work alongside the long-serving physio Neil Dalton.

"My role was new to the club, and they've backed us and kept that normality even when a new manager came in," Fearn says. "With Graham, it was one of the many things he tried to do to improve the professionalism on the working side of things.

"I was fortunate he gave me the opportunity and fortunate the club kept that consistency when Keith came in."

Was Fearn's guidance embraced by those he worked with, under both managerial regimes (Curle replaced Kavanagh early in the 2014/15 campaign)? "For the most part it was. It's an advisory position. For all your experiences and everything you bring to the table, it might not get acted upon all the time. But you're there to advise.

"It was a blank slate when I came to the club, which was difficult in some regards, but over the last four years Dolly and myself have developed our department, and injury records every year have gone down. That's a fact - the numbers back that up."

Fearn, Dalton and Jordan Beech were honoured in 2016 when United's medical team were named the best in League Two. That came after a gruelling period when those in charge of fitness at Brunton Park had to cope after the devastating Storm Desmond floods.

A legacy of that hard time is a new state-of-the-art gym at Brunton Park, while Fearn says that, before he left last month, he and Dalton had planned pre-season work for later this summer; it will, of course, be down to whether a new manager decides to implement it.

"Everything we could have done for players, we've done," he adds. "There are constraints in terms of budgets, resources, but in terms of what we can do and could have done, I don't look back with any regrets.

"It's a job I was passionate about, still am. I still do some work with athletes in my spare time. There's a side a lot don't see, working voluntarily, your dad taking our a loan so you can travel to far-flung places and afford to live without a wage [when starting out]. I'm still paying that loan back now...

"A lot of hours and work go into it to try and make it work. You make mistakes but it's the same in any job. The players are the ones who go out and do it. I'd like to think all I've done is given the best advice possible and given them an opportunity to be as good as they can be.

"I just feel privileged to have been a part of it. There have been times over the last four years when I've had offers to go to other clubs, but my partner and I loved it so much here we wanted to stay and do our best for the club.

"I think this the hardest decision I've made in my life, certainly in my professional career. But you have to move on some time."

It is, as Fearn says, often an unsung profession, so he was chuffed when teenage striker Max Brown mentioned him in an interview when signing professional terms, having been helped back from a cruciate knee ligament injury.

Asked which other players have been good to deal with, he cites Danny Grainger as a model of consistency, and an organiser behind the scenes.

Grainger and his team-mates clubbed together to buy Fearn a commemorative watch as a leaving gift last month: a sign of his popularity in the dressing room. "I assume it wasn't just one of the man-of-the-match watches they didn't want!" he laughs. "As for Dolly, he just said, 'Make sure you clean your desk on the way out'. He was always criticising me for living life as a student. He'll be glad his room's a bit tidier now..."

Fearn says there are other unsung heroes behind the scenes at Brunton Park - while he has been a familiar and at times passionate presence on the touchline at United. As he plans to remain a Carlisle resident, he says he will keep in close touch with the Blues.

"I remember my first game, against Luton [a 1-0 defeat at the start of the 2014/15 season]," he says. "We did ok in the second half, but the season didn't start as we wanted, when it was supposed to be a brave new era.

"I'll never forget walking off the pitch, and one of my first interactions with someone from Carlisle was them getting mad, gesticulating and telling me I should go back to Nottingham - 'a fat lot of good having a sports scientist has done us'.

"Welcome to Carlisle! So that might be me in the Paddock giving it out to somebody else next season."