If Gareth Southgate is the man to revolutionise grass roots football in England, then I'm going to win Britain's Got Talent by turning up and shitting on the desk in front of Amanda Holden. I despair at what I've read today, it seems we've gone back 10 years in the plan for development of our young players. People have watched the Barcelona side (to coin a Gary Brabin phrase) "football to death" everyone they've come up against and filled their pants at the prospect of trying to come up with a plan to stop them. So instead of trying to beat them, it seems we're all going to join them. Who is going to beat Barcelona by trying to do what Barcelona do? Anyway, I'm getting away from my point...
Gareth Southgate has today come out and said about the "horror" of watching a kids 11 a side game where the kid lumps the ball forward from the back to great applause from parents. I ran an under 6's team through to under 8's around 5 years ago, back then we were hearing exactly the same things. I had to drop out from running this team, but learnt a lot through the coaching courses I took and the communication we used to receive from the F.A. All the courses then were directed at exactly what our "Head of Elite Development" has said today. What youth football has he been watching for the last 5 years?! I haven't seen any 11 a side games, unless there's been a drastic change I haven't heard about then kids football aren't allowed to move onto full size pitches with 11 players until they are 13 years old.
Something that Gareth Southgate does point out that I agree with is the pressure from parents. This is the single biggest problem with youth development in our game today. I attended a number of courses where all the emphasis was on as many touches on the ball as possible, encouraging a pass at the back rather than lumping it forward and all the other things which are quite key for the development of our youngsters. But where I think the issue is with our local youth football teams lies, is pressure. As crazy as it sounds, parents want to see their kid win more than they want to see them develop. The team I was at was quite lucky, there were none of the stereotypical pushy parents that are being referred to. But it makes me cringe to remember some of the parents from opposition teams who would be shrieking at their kids to "get it out of play" or go mad if they dared pass it backwards.
In my experience, this attitude of win at all costs spurns from parents who are wishing to live some success through their children. It's horrible to see, I'm all for encouraging and supporting your child but when it verges on desperation to see them win, the problems start. I have a fine example of this from my time in charge of a youth football team. We were playing a 'local rival', a lot of the kids from each team were friends and the team we were playing had a bit of a reputation for being the best. Bear in mind we are talking about a bunch of 6 and 7 year olds as this story goes on. A lot of our boys spent the weeks building up to the game worried, myself and our other coach kept emphasising it's just the same as any other game and that we were there to enjoy ourselves, win or lose. The game itself ended in a narrow loss for our boys, 3-2. We had a pretty special goalkeeper for his age, who despite being extremely talented would blame himself for any goals let in. When the opposing team scored their 3rd, he burst into tears and was distraught at himself for letting the team down. Myself and the other coach ran onto the pitch to console him, telling him to "keep his chin up", that we were very proud (which we were) of him and that he had let nobody down. He was inconsolable and as we were taking him off the pitch, a coach from the opposite side said "is he going to stop crying so we can get on with the game?". I turned and quietly said "you're talking to a 6 year old, just leave it". His reply was "I used to let loads of goals in as a kid, you didn't see me crying".
It would of been very easy at this point to lose my temper, this is exactly the attitude that needs stamping out. But I remember when I was a kid, my coach was my idol. What he said was gospel, more so than parents or teachers. It frightens me that we have people like this responsible for doing his own shoe laces up, let alone the development of our footballers. This guy is obviously making up for his own shortcomings in football through what were a very talented set of kids. It's this sort of attitude I've seen throughout youth football which I think is killing it. The coach from the opposite team had a very talented bunch of kids, but to prefer to see them win rather than string 10 passes together or demonstrate some skills is plain wrong when dealing with 6 and 7 year olds. To go as far as slating a 6 year old for crying, there's a lot I could say about this guy as a person as well as a coach.
I'm not one of these people that completely disagree with any form of competition, I think sports days where there are no winners or losers are a reason we are falling behind the likes of Australia and the USA in sports development. But the "winning" in youth football needs to be seeing a kid progress into an academy and hopefully into the professional game. People need to ask themselves why they are getting involved, if you're a coach and you're there to eradicate some bad memories you had as a child or for personal glory, you shouldn't be anywhere near the game of football in my opinion.
We used to set tasks for our boys on match day to try and turn the match experience into more of a training game. We'd say "we want everyone to attempt one trick" or "there will be a prize for everyone if at any point you complete 10 passes". Without wanting to blow our own trumpet, we had a scout from Ipswich who would regularly come to our games and praise our approach to the game. What we were doing wasn't exactly rocket science, anyone who can see past the end of their nose can see if we encourage technique and composure on the ball from day 1 of a footballers development, we'll have players who are more comfortable in possession at the end of a production line. This is why I've despaired and worry that we are going backwards in the development of our players today, we've been saying the same thing for what must be 10 years now and there's been no action.
The key to your success as our head of elite development will be to tackle the attitudes, small sided games and telling our coaches to encourage passing over hoofing are not the answer Mr. Southgate. I fear you've come into a role that you are out of your depth with and are telling us what we want to hear. Trevor Brooking seemed to set the wheels in motion for what looked like a good blue print to drag our game out of the doldrums. Please don't mess it up, we have a thirst for football in this country like no other. Harness that and find our coaches that are encouraging good football, find the clubs that have the backing of parents and only hand out charter standard status when you know you've got everyone on board in this philosophy. As with the Respect campaign, draw up a document that EVERYONE involved in a club must sign. Parents, coaches, players, chairmen, get all their names signed on a document that says we are here to develop young footballers, not win trophies. Winning games will come as a result of development, it might be a longer path to get there, but it's in the long term interests of our club and national game. Hold evenings with each league, compulsory attendance with emphasis on development and kicking this sort of attitude out of our game. Don't give any funding to anyone who won't adhere to this, hit clubs where it hurts and make it so that the only opportunities within football for our young, enthusiastic players are with clubs who want to make the next generation of England players. Not the ones who encourage "if in doubt kick it out" or play the big clogger of a player over a smaller technically gifted player.
So basically, thanks Mr. Southgate, for sweet F.A and telling us what we've been told for years. Now go do something about it.
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