22nd February 2013, Lancashire FA, The County Ground. Thinking i was on time I entered the Sir Tom Finney Suite to 36+ young leaders all listening to the opening of the Camp. A few familiar faces dotted around the room meant that I didn't feel to embarrassed, whilst being waved over by my partner in crime for the day, Mike Nadal (Girls & Disability FDO).
As with the Shropshire county camp I had been asked to support the event and help where possible. A weird feeling to be leading young leaders, as a young leader. the day had been broken down into 3 sessions; coaching disabled footballers, refereeing and skills coaching. For this to work the young leaders were also split into 3 groups, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Malaga. I was with team Malaga; there was myself, Mike and Owen Coyle (Lancashire FA Apprentice) supporting the group.
Iain Kay (Education FDO) finished off the introductions and opened up the camp. Some key messages; enjoy it and take everything away that you can. Young volunteers had been nominated for the camp, so they had already shown signs of promise to become more involved as a volunteer. You only get out what you put in, the more you put into the camp, the more you will get out of it.
'If you stand on the side now, you will always stand on the side.' Steve Daley.
Our first session of the day, coaching disabled footballers, was delivered by Steve Daley, the current England Partially sighted captain who has 117 caps to his name and 6 world cup/championship appearances. Clearly there was no better man to deliver the module.
The session's key topic was, 'Can you deliver sessions which allow everyone to join in?' When putting sessions together it is easy to assume player's ability and plan for the best. But what if this doesn't work? or you have a problem, such as a player with a disability? As a coach you have to plan for the worst, be able to have back up plans. Prepare for the worst, but expect the best.
Communication is the key skill in any sport, but it's pivotal in disability sport. Communication is the route to portraying messages. If you cant deliver your message correctly then you will never get success. 90% of communication is non-verbal. You need to maximise what you are saying verbally in the minimal time. This doesn't mean only give out parts of your messages. Everyone learns differently, know your players and how they learn best. Communicate efficiently to get the best results.
Back to the session topic, the group were taken outside for a to look at the inclusive challenge in a practical view. Looking at making games inclusive. What modifications can be made to allow everyone to take part, to challenge the strugglers and strivers. Possibly using different equipment, for example different sized balls. Throwing them as well as kicking them, in the air and on the floor. A very insightful session for the young leaders, showing what challenges they might have to face in the future, and also how to deal with them.
Following lunch was our second session, refereeing. An interactive seminar lead by Steve Stuart and Eddie Wolstenholme. Starting off with an ice-breaker, very much like blind date to get know on-another. So moving onto the session itself, a few questions were asked of the young leaders, what are the do's and don'ts, highs and lows of being a referee? What is it like to be a professional referee? A question which brought out a number of answers, what is the general perception of referees?
-Depends on which team you support came out as an answer, as a referee you can only ever please one team.
-Referees apparently haven't played the game, according to newspapers, this meaning they don't understand the game. This is probably more of an issue with the advantage law, knowing when to play on or bring the play back.
-They get a lot of bad press, when watching Match of the Day, you only really see referees when they make a bad decision. They say the best referees are the ones you don't notice, most of the time you don't notice them and they don't get the credit they deserve for putting up with bad behaviour, or even when they have a good game.
Is this bad press unfair? A great example, would you scream at your striker if they missed from 5 yards out? Probably not, so why do coaches go crazy when a referee makes a mistake?
We then moved onto a quiz, the Laws of Association Football, being honest I think me and Mike should never attempt to referee again as we scored 3/10. Luckily most of the young leaders did a lot better than us.Questions including, How many people can participate in the restart method of a dropped ball? Team A are about to take a corner when a defender from Team B punches an opponent, what do you do? A player scores a goal without his boot on, do you give a goal? All of the questions were teasing, and tested us all, showing that we don't really know the laws of the game!
A second quiz took place, looking at decision making and consistency. The young leaders had to watch clips of match incidents and then decide if they would give a red card, yellow card or something else. This time the dream team scored, 12/18!! Some horrendous tackles were shown, after making our decisions the referee's decisions were shown and then UEFA's decisions. Some very surprising results!
The final quiz related to the disciplinary action and incidents of football with Lancashire over the 2011/12 season. We had to guess the right answer... I got 5/5. Some very surprising stats, 18,277 discipline cases were dealt with. 2,256 red cards, 14,949 yellow cards and 24 players received over 10 cautions that season. crazy stuff.
The final session of the day, skills coaching, delivered by Chris Hurst. Considering the wonderful Lancashire cold weather came out, the young leaders did a great job of diving right into the session. To begin with Chris lead a session, which started off very basic and then built up to include a football and become relatively complex. This session was the 'Great Escape' drill which is a part of the FA Youth Award Module 1. This game focuses on the basic movements within football [ABC's] moving in different directions, using different movements and finding innovative ways to get around the grid. Next step, try to get out of the grid via the gates, still using these basic movements, not just running out - cause that is well boring! The next step was to bring in guards who would tag people as they tried to escape. The final part was to introduce a ball, so everyone moving around the grid and then trying to escape without being tug.
The challenge for our young leaders was, using the same grid, develop your own session. There were different themes for the groups to adhere to, passing, individual development and game related. Those who had the challenge of involving passing split the players into 2 team and asked them to pass the ball around the grid. To begin with the 2 teams stayed in 1 half of the grid, they were soon asked to mingle and move around. The progression was to pass the ball and then leave the grid. Only after you have left and the re-entered can the player touch the ball again.
The second group has individual development, their game was based around the 'king of the ring' concept. The adaptations were to have a safe zone on each side of the grid, but you could only stay there for a limited time. Also, to stop players from standing around on the outside of the grid if their ball had been kicked out, they could come back into the game if they dribbled around a series of cones which were a part of the outer grid.
The third and final group were looking at a game related game. They re-arranged a few of the cones to make goals, and set up a directional attacking drill. Within the grid, 1v1s, 3v3s or even under loads/overloads were used. The progressions were the change in players in each phase of the drill.
The final part of the day, was a round up by Iain Kay. Introducing the Football Futures Programme and Apprentice Programme which is run by the County FA.
A very successful day on all accounts. I hope that the young leaders took all that they could from the day, and carry it through into their clubs and for their own personal development. 'There was no point in going and not remembering any of it.' A great comment from a young leader following the day, fingers crossed others went away feeling the same!
Thank you Lancashire FA for inviting me to the event and allowing me to support and be around some amazing young leaders. The future appears to be in good hands.
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