How far would you go?

Hi guys and welcome to my next post. This week I want to talk about how far people will go to make their coaching dreams come true. What would you do?

Personally I have volunteered at local level for the past 8 years working with as many different age groups as possible, u8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,18 and adults. I have volunteerd, a 90 mile round trip away, to work

with Hellenic Premier side Witney Town, to improve myself and develop as a coach from a different experience in a different environment and have returned back to my local team and worked with First, reserve and U18 teams again to experience different levels of ability and maturity to develop as a coach.

Following completing my Youth Award Module 1 and 2, I met Marc Canham of the FA who then moved to Bristol City Academy as Head of Foundation Phase and created the Trainee Coach initiative. I applied on Marc's recommendation and was accepted on to the voluntary learning programme for coaches. I volunteered for 7 months and gave myself the opportunity to work with A and B Licensed coaches as well as some of the best young players in the South West of England. Living 45 miles from the City makes this a difficult task but in my mind you have to do what you have to do.

Following my initial 7 months I was offered the opportunity to help develop the U8's looking to sign on for the Academy at u9 age group. This then allowed me to be registered with the club and the football league and be a permanent member of the team. I continue to work voluntarily, with U18's and have recently vacated the position of U10's manager at my local club due to my commitments at the Academy, as well as running my coaching company going from school to school and delivering Soccer Schools during half terms. 

I have now developed through to working with the U11's as assistant coach and am completing my Youth Module 3 in March.

So my question this week is, how far would you go?

Would you travel for no payment because there was a chance it might help you to make connections and develop as a coach? Would you travel distance or dedicate hours, days, weeks and months because there was the slightest chance of paid employment in the pro game at the end of it? 

Should we be talking about youth football becoming a summer sport?

Following another week of games called off, training sessions cancelled and after school clubs in the mud, should we be asking for youth football in England to become a Summer sport? Lets be honest, Summer's here aren't exactly the hottest and the extra sunlight would allow for evening games as well as the traditional weekend matches.

The Academy were due in Stoke this past Sunday but again due to the weather all games were postponed and it led to a day off. In the absence of the Academy football I was looking around the local area for another game to go and see or help out at. As expected every game that should have been on was off and I ended up at home watching Sky Sports, not always a bad thing.

This got me to thinking of the 2 months we have in the Summer where the kids are crying out for organised football and yet every club seems to take a 'break' and have what we call pre-season. Just think of the headway that could be made during that time to work on skills, techniques, game understanding and much more in a better more appropriate environment.

The idea, for me, would be to have 2 seasons, season one happening 1st March - 14th July and season two happening 15th August - 30th November. This allows for a break during the busy summer break when people are on holiday and the children are not at school. Also a nice break for December, January and February when historically most games are postponed anyway. This would mean better surfaces to play on (not ruined by the bad weather and play) and would allow for more hours contact time. Yes we would only play for 8 months of the year but during those 8 months we would get much more time out on the field with the children.

The Summer month off could be filled with festivals of mixed ages through the Foundation Phase to allow clubs more chance to raise a team at this busy time of year.

I would suggest this be the case from U15 down and then keep U16 up as it is to help with the transition to adult football. Obviously this would mean less opportunity for clubs to run their annual tournaments so may mean less revenue but with the better environment and more opportunity to play I feel an upturn in the number of children playing would out way that loss.

If you agree or not please feel free to leave a comment or get in touch if you have any ideas.

Until next week.......

Diversity in coaching...

So it's now been 2 weeks since I started with the FA to deliver there 'Mash Up' programme at a local secondary school and I have just got in from my third session. Slightly different to my usual work with 5-11 year olds, and what an enjoyable experience it is turning out to be. The whole culture of the programme really allows the guys and girls to play freely in a fun environment.

As an example of this, the provision for music to be on whilst they play a football match with a focus and challenge is fantastic. Another great way to get the youngsters interacting socially during the sessions is to allow them to decide which challenge out of a selection they will do each week. Finishing off with a keepy-up challenge every other week has also allowed me to see just how supportive these young people are to one and other. With year 9's actively encouraging and supporting year 7 and 8 children to have a go and improve week on week. 

The challenges go from scenarios of league champs V relegation all to way to 'is it on' where you can only pass forward, fantastic for developing the decision making and movement skills of the young people. One of my favourites is '5 goals, 5 ways' in which there is 4 set goals and one of their choosing, if the team score all 5 before the alloted time is up they win the game, a great way to encourage team work and practice of all different types of finishing including weaker foot, volleys and headers.

I am finding that being able to work at a community level in the foundation phase, now with the older children and the young adults at U18 level, as well as my work at the Academy with the U8's and 11's, I am really starting to become a more well rounded coach that is able to deal with more scenarios and draw on my experiences of all the different age groups to be more effective in each of them when dealing with the children and helping them to problem solve within the sessions.

My advice to all coaches at all levels would be to get out and coach as many different teams at as many different ages and as many different levels as possible. Especially early on in your coaching career. Then when you settle on an age that your are best suited it will be an educated decision and you will ultimately be a better coach and be able to deal with the different spectrum of maturity within your group or team.

Until next time.....

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'....

Welcome to 'Tales of a Football Coach'

Welcome to my brand new weekly blog 'Tales of a Football Coach'. Each week i will be writing a post detailing the fun and games of the last 7 days. My tales take me from local schools, to grass roots clubs, to soccer schools, to 1:1 sessions, to county FA sessions and to elite level academy sessions in a category 2 academy.

I have been coaching at local grass roots level for the past 8 years, working with 2 very strong local clubs working with ages from Under 9's upto first team Helenic Premier Division standard. I am currently a Level 2 qualified coach that has completed Module 1 and 2 of the FA Youth Award and am completing Module 3 this coming February.

18 Months ago i applied for a new trainee coaches scheme at a local Championship clubs academy and after successfully completing the interview process and 7 months as part of the trainee scheme was offered the opportunity to work with the U8's within the Academy. The boys in this group are all competing to be signed by the Academy officially at the end of the season as the following season U9's. This experience was a real eye opener for me as to how vast the difference is between local level football and Elite level. Since then i have developed in the environment and after successfully applying for the position as U11 assistant i find myself in the position i am now, working with some of the best 10/11 year olds in the south west of England.

I hope you enjoy my tales and feel free to comment on what you read, with your thoughts on how things should be done and how you do things as learning from each other is the best way to develop.

See you in 7 days.