Starting a new job and moving home in the same week is never easy...

So this past week was a particularly busy one with the start of a new term, getting back into the swing of things at the Academy, starting a new programme with the County FA and moving home.

Monday was a bit of strange one with teacher training days playing havoc with the schedule and no sessions happening for Inclusion. The weather also meant that training for the U18's was cancelled.

Tuesday was a much more productive day with 2 sessions happening for Inclusion and my first day back at the Academy following the new year. 'B' Licence assessments and YM3 assessments meant a bit of a shuffle around and I ended up working with the U8(pre-academy) children which is always a delight. We mixed them in with the U7 children and had a tournament with 4 teams and the 5th team was off for skills school with Raph.

Raph can be seen back left next to....

Raph Burke is a top coach and even better person that I have worked with extensively over the last year. Starting at Manchester United in the youth ranks under the stewardship of Eric Harrison and playing alongside such great players as Paul Scholes and David Beckham. Raph now finds himself loving life try to help the next generation achieve success in the game. 

The session worked well with all having the opportunity to work with Raph in his skills school and put it into practice in games.

Wednesday meant a full day back in school doing PE which we base loosely around the youth award games and look to develop the fundamental skills of the children and use the 4-Corner model.

Thursday was an exciting day personally for myself, delivering my first Mash-Up session for the County FA. With an amazing attendance of 34 children I can see that this is going to be an interesting 26 week programme with each session being game based with a different focus and task to complete. Heavily based on fun, social interaction and contact time with the sport a starting number of 34 is absolutely brilliant. We played a game of panna. 4 teams, roll on roll off, if you get a nutmeg your team scores a goal, if you score a goal that counts also and the team winning at the end of 5 mins stays on. 

Friday was moving day, but before all the fun and games started it was time to visit Inclusions newest school for our first session of the year with them. It turned out that the gym club guys had let them down so we ended up taking both the football and gym clubs together inside and played handball. We used a whole-part-whole method, playing a game, breaking it down into 'piggy in the middle' in 3's and then going back into the game. We finished with a game of football for the last 10 mins and following the sessions an interesting conversation with the school will hopefully mean a bit more work coming our way in the next couple of months.

Bit of a manic week and following a weekend of moving and putting furniture together, IKEA is a wonderful place, I am ready to go again and see what the wonderful world of a football coach can throw at me this week.

See you all next week for more 'Tales of a Football Coach'....