Every Two Years - The Media & Youth Coaching

It was somewhat of a surprise when Stan Collymore asked the question - 'The definitive debate on coaching football in the UK..Tell us what's happening' I thought fair play to him.  This is a subject that is often ignored when we are in the throes of the domestic football season.


Stan went on to outline his views on the subject and they can be found here http://t.co/Jn4Relw3 He raised a number of points that rarely get 'airtime' and subsequently went on to debate the topic on talksport on Monday 14th November.  I decided to email the programme and I have shown this below.


Whenever the profile of coaching and youth football is raised I always think maybe this is going to be a regular source of debate.  Personally I think it should be.  Unfortunately, other news, the domestic league programme and red top headlines tend to push it on to the back burner ready to be resurrected bi-annually after european championships or world cup tournaments.  


Unfortunately, Stan has gone a little quiet on the subject, partly due to Sepp Blatter's latest gaff I assume.  On a positive note, the EPPP and the FA's changes to youth football seem to have raised the profile and it is being discussed on a more regular basis than I recall in the past.


For those interested, this was my response to Stan Collymore and Talksport:

1. The junior game should not try to be a mirror image of the premier league if we want to prioritise the development of young english footballers.  I see grasroots coaches using hurdles, poles, ladders - normally with 15 to 20 kids waiting in a line without a football in sight.  This also happens in warm ups where kids are doing jogging, stretching and the obligatory line of kids waiting to take a shot at the goalkeeper with the coach serving.  Kids should be placed in positions where they are actually playing the game, with as little input as possible from adults.  If they are in a coached environment, fine, add a bit more detail at the right times, but they are not going to learn how to be independent thinking footballers with too much overbearing adult influence.

2. Schools football.  If possible a greater emphasis should be placed on the national sport in the primary & secondary sector.  This needs to be by consensus with the schools & pupils so we shouldn't force all to participate but realign the pe curriculum so that children get targeted coaching in priority sports from regulated external coaches if necessary.

3. Junior Football - coaching is still considered a volunatry activity & if the FA and Sports Coach UK want to place a greater emphasis on the professionalisation of coaching then the culture needs to change so that paid coaching activity is encouraged.  This could be, for example a Director of Coaching position at large junior clubs (charter standard community clubs) who could then put in place a playing vision & coaching strategy for that club or a group of clubs offering coaching advice & mentoring for new coaches.

4. Opportunities for coaches who have chosen to progress (& pay for coach education) The FA's report back in 2008 widely reported that we had under 2,000 B Licence coaches (think it's around 2,500 or 3,000 now) compared to France - 15,000 & Germany - 28,000.  These coaches could be deployed in the schools or junior football sector if it was co-ordinated & paid for by for example - implementing the government recommendations on the FA's financial surplus which is currently split 50% to the professional game & 50% to the National/Grassroots game.

5. Premier League look at interpretation of "net" when distributing fully 30% of their "net broadcasting income" to the grassroots.  The English Cricket Board simply distribute 30% from their broadcast income whereas the Premier League are allowed to net off players salaries as an operating cost.  Either this or a levy on player transfer fees or agents fees to be re-directed to youth development including grassroots football.

So, to summarise, it's always positive when the profile of youth football and youth coaching is raised.  I just hope I don't need to keep using a quote I found which tends to sum up the media mentality to international football 'failure' and the way it is always inextricably linked to coaching and youth development:


'Hyper expectation, dawning realisation, bitter recrimination, inquest, forget, repeat again in two years.' - (Unknown European Journalist)

Coaching - Tradition or Modernisation

This is a short post and is taken directly from a coaching journal - Learning a new method: Teaching Games for Understanding in the coaches’ eyes.  Amongst the various books, journals and other sources of information I have read, some just seem to make more sense to me than others and this article is one of those that just stands out and connects with my own thoughts and views on coaching.  I have highlighted the points that 'stood out' for me. 


Extract from Article
Coaches’ knowledge and actions are both the product and manifestation of a personally
experienced involvement with the coaching process; they are linked to the coach’s
history and both are attributable to how they were learned (Cushion 2006). Coach learning,and therefore knowledge and practice, remains largely based on experiences and the interpretation of those experiences (Cushion, Armour, and Jones 2003; Cushion 2006;
Gilbert and Trudel 2006). This is despite the implementation and availability of formal
coach education programmes. Indeed, formal coach education remains largely ad hoc
and low impact in comparison to coaches’ wider experiences and subsequent collective
understandings (Nelson et al. 2006; Gilbert and Trudel 2006). Consequently, coaches’
resulting practice is ‘guided primarily by tradition, circumstance and external authority’
(Tinning 1988, 82; see also Williams and Hodges 2004). Indeed, coaching has established
a ‘traditional’ pedagogy or practice that is characterised by being highly directive or autocratic, and prescriptive in nature (Williams and Hodges 2004; Potrac and Cassidy 2006).  This perspective is supported by behavioural research that has tended to find ‘instruction’ as the largest behaviour utilised across a range of sports including soccer (e.g. Miller 1992; Millard 1996; Kahan 1999; Cushion and Jones 2001; Potrac, Jones, and Cushion 2007). In addition, coaches’ practice tends to be underpinned by a linear, process-product approach to learning, where ‘skills’ are to be mastered first and form the basis for games play (Cassidy,Jones, and Potrac 2009).

This has been brought into stark relief in a recent study of elite youth soccer players.
Williams, Yates, and Ford (2007) studied 27 youth coaches, working at three different
levels of performance from elite academies to competitive clubs. The research looked at
81 different practice sessions with players aged between U9 and U16. While there were
differences in practice activities between performance levels, across the entire sample
almost 50% of practice time was spent in physiological training (i.e. warm-up, cooldown,
conditioning, stretching activities) and technical practice (i.e. repetitive drills and
grid work focused simply on technical development under no pressure). In contrast, a relatively small proportion of time was spent in practicing skills under pressure in possession,and small-sided games.


Changing established coaching practice can be problematic particularly as, not unlike
physical education (Cushion, Armour, and Jones 2003), coaching lacks a critical tradition,
and coaches are more likely to be seen sticking with ‘safer’, ‘tried and tested’, traditional methods that prove their knowledge and expertise (Potrac, Jones, and Armour 2002; Coakley 2004; Jones, Armour, and Potrac 2004; Cushion, Armour, and Jones 2006;
Cushion and Jones 2006; Potrac, Jones, and Cushion 2007; Cushion 2007, 2008, 2009).
‘The consequence of such action is that athletes are, in turn, increasingly socialized into
expecting instructional behaviours from coaches, and thus resist other coaching methods’
(Potrac, Jones, and Cushion 2007, 40) as these are deemed consciously, or subconsciously,
to be associated with performance accomplishment. Thus, practice becomes an historical and traditional thread where experiences are a powerful, long lasting, and continual influence over pedagogical perspectives, practices, beliefs and behaviours (Cushion 2008,2009). The main driver for practice therefore becomes tradition or uncritical inertia (Fernandez-Balboa 1997; Cushion, Armour, and Jones 2003).