Coaching at Taplow United
As a coach at the club, you may find yourself in the deep-end with a squad of
children to look after and keep entertained.
You may also find yourself managing and training a senior squad. The demands
are quite different but the sources of information overlap as do some of the
football principles.
For junior soccer, it will soon become apparent that
coaching is more than just football, cones and grids/pitches. You will be
organiser, teacher, guardian, confidante, medic, taxi driver, amongst others.
It would be nice to think senior players were easier to look after but this may
not quite be the case!
As a newcomer you may find yourself asking the following questions:
What philosophy should govern my approach?
The first thing that tends to worry you is: what is the
governing principle about how I should approach coaching? There have been a lot
of differing views about this over the years and there is obviously room for
different styles at different age groups, but for junior soccer at least the
approach outlined by the Dutch Soccer federation resonates most with me about
how people learn soccer:
Soccer is a game with certain elements. There must be a ball,
teammates and opponents, a field with boundaries,
goals opposite each other and soccer rules.
A soccer coach coaches soccer, not something else. This thought
is at the heart of the Dutch Vision. A practice is either soccer,
soccer like or
soccer strange.
To follow this
philosophy through and see what it means for the coach, including sample
exercises to illustrate the style, visit www.bettersoccermorefun.com. An
excellent site which you should take to heart in your approach – play soccer and
pose real soccer-related problems.
How do I get the background information on what coaching
means?
This is available from
www.1st4sport.com. This site contains a wealth of reading, visual and audio
material to hep you get started or keep up with latest techniques across the
range of sports disciplines.
To keep abreast of developing standards you should subscribe to FA Learning News
(http://www.thefa.com/static/ezine/FALearningEzineApr04.html).
This on-line publication alerts you to the latest thinking and news on a variety
of topics related to coaching.
There are an increasing number of web sites with useful information.
www.finesoccer looks like it
is intending to be one of the better ones.
How do I get practical experience?
Well, you could just take the plunge and take a session. A lot of coaches
start this way. At Taplow Utd you will be able to observe other coaches in
action or join them in running a session. That is the comfortable way in.
Alternatively you can attend an FA learning or coaching
course. There is a new psychology of sport course which would help you
appreciate what I mean by the breadth of your role and the football coach
beginner’s course is the level 1 certificate. Most of the courses are
residential (some on-line) and cost a little bit of money (considerably cheaper
if booked before the 1 March). Our local approved coaching centre is
County Coaching based at Wye Valley School www.countycoaching.com
The coaching ladder is illustrated below and details of all the courses can be
found at http://www.thefa.com/TheFA/FALearning/NewsAndFeatures/Postings/2003/11/Becoming_a_coach.htm
THE FOUR STEPS TO
BECOMING A TOP COACH
Whichever approach you use it is about thinking about the needs of your
audience, developing a set of tools to fit your coaching style, getting
organised (can’t stress enough how much this is required), having enough changes
of approach to keep people interested and following good practice.
How do I build on my knowledge?
You may want to complement what you have learned at any one time from the
resources above with new insights and techniques. The most useful forum I have
found for this is at
www.worldsoccercoaching.com. This organisation runs courses with
professional soccer coaches, days at Clubs’ training camps and publishes
practices and fitness techniques in a magazine. We have a subscriber at the
club if you wish to look through the material.
