THE ADULT IMPACT
By
John Allpress
VISIT INSIGHT
www.TheFA.com/FALearning INSIGHT
SUMMER 2007
15
Nobody is
born a great footballer. Every Rooney,
Ronaldo, Henry or Cannavaro has
to become that
good. Top players have to have
had the right mix of
attitude and capability
otherwise they would not
have stayed the course and made
the grade.
Learning is at the core of this
process.
Learning about the game and how
to play it is both a
science and
an art. So how did the greats learn the
game? Matthews, Finney,
Puskas, Di Stefano, Pele, Best
and Zidane – well the answers to
that question could be
many and varied but what is
certain is that they loved
the game and they played it as
kids for hours and
hours, day after day, come rain
or shine, wherever and
whenever they could, with
whoever they could.
They played in the streets, the
playgrounds, on grass,
on concrete, and on waste
ground. They played with
their mates – older or younger –
with anything that
bounced or rolled (and sometimes
with things that
didn’t). Most importantly they
took responsibility and
they sorted things out because
if they didn’t, nobody
else would. It was probably
unstructured and
sometimes chaotic (15 a side on
a pile of mud with
players of all shapes and ages)
but the greats were
playing and learning, getting in
their 10,000 hours of
practice and experimenting.
More
importantly they were free. Free to have fun.
Free to copy their heroes
and their mates, free to
pretend they were playing in the
cup final, free to mess
around with a new trick, free to
take risks in their play,
free to make their own
decisions, free to solve their
own problems, free to use their
imaginations to find
clever solutions because they
were the little kid playing
with the big ones or the big
gangly kid who has to deal
with the tricky little one. Free
to make their mistakes
without an adult saying ‘NO you
can’t do that there’.
Kids that
love playing football want to play football.
All the greats love the
game. An important contribution
to the fact that they became
great is that they actually
played lots and lots of football
without adults being
involved. So is there a message
there for those of us
involved in youth football?
When I look
at youth football in England today I see the
opposite to what I
believe youngsters need. I see
structure not freedom. I see
more attention paid to rules
and regulations than to the
needs of the players. I see
too much over coaching and not
enough playing. I see
children playing adult football
from seven years old.
I see grown men on the sideline
behaving worse than
their children – questioning the
referee, shouting out
instructions often in jargon the
kids don’t understand.
So how can we help our kids? Well why not give them
what they want and need! Fun games and football with
variety and challenge where they can run, dribble,
shoot, score, tackle, turn, gets lots of touches of the ball
and compete with bigger stronger, older kids or learn to
look after the smaller younger ones. Maybe we force
them to grow up too early? Maybe we should let them
play as kids play so that they can learn the game as kids
learn – purely and simply.
Then what should the adults do in all this mayhem?
Well, model good behaviour yourself because the
youngsters look to you and also enjoy them for what
they are – kids who love to play the game. So set up
(or get them to set up) activities which allow the players
to practise and experiment. Laugh and cry with them.
Cheer for them, congratulate them and put in the
boundaries they need to function as people - show
them how to respect the referee, applaud good play
(the oppositions’ too) and behave well in victory and
defeat. If you do you’ll see some fantastic football
played by happy kids doing what they love.
But it won’t be adult football. It will be kids’ football played by the kids,
for the kids, not for you.
They may not mark up when they should or pass when
they should or dribble at the wrong time in the wrong places but that doesn’t
matter, they are learning the
game they love playing high risk football, making
mistakes, solving problems and making their own
decisions – experimenting with the game itself building
up the ‘know how’ they need to carry on playing the
game as teenagers, young adults, adults, professionals,
amateurs, World Cup winners, Champions League
winners, veterans, mums and dads and grand-mums
and grand-dads kicking about in the park with the next
lot coming through.
Remember you’re just along for the ride, and what a
ride it is, the roller-coaster ride of a lifetime. So relax,
chill out and enjoy the thrills and spills it brings with it.
The adult impact on young players today is immense.
Everybody is a ‘coach’ – and football pays homage to
the ‘coaching culture’ but when people become
coaches especially of kids they pick up a great
responsibility – a responsibility to become a student not
simply of the game of football but also a student of the
people who play it and the needs they have at particular
times in their football career. Coaches must accept early
in their coaching careers that some players will never
need them.
When players are young they need boundaries
regarding standards of behaviour and effort but within
these boundaries they also need the freedom to express
themselves in an environment that is free of fear and
the fear of failure. What is inside a young player must
be encouraged to flourish, not flounder on the rocks of
adult expectation.
Adults must understand that the youngsters are
responsible for their own learning and the adults’ job is
simply to provide more opportunities to play football
and support when the players need it but not to
interfere when they don’t.
Adults must also understand that the young players
don’t necessarily want you to give them the answers to
the problems the game throws up at them (they really
like to sort those out for themselves and it is much
better for their learning if they do) but what they may
need are clues to what the answer may be. Here with
knowledge, skill and planning coaches can design the
football activities which provide the clues the players
may need.
Probably the most important question a coach or
player can ask is…..what if? It has taken me years to understand that it is OK
if I say to a young player –
I don’t know the answer to that. Shall we see if we can
sort it out? Just the same as it is OK for me to say to a
youngster who is struggling with a new skill or idea that
it’s OK not to be able to do it today.
The giants of The Premier League and Europe are
beginning to look all over the world for the talent that
will keep them competitive in the future. Africa and South America where the
kids are still free to play the
game they love seems to be the where the richest
pickings are to be found. Have we ever stopped for just
a moment to ask ourselves why that could be?
Unfortunately, to play for England you need to be
English somewhere along the line. So we are restricted
to the 48 million people who sit with that tag and when
it is compared to the population of the world it has to
be seen for what it is – a very precious commodity
indeed.
The FA work to a four corners model for player
development and learning – technical; physical;
psychological and social. All four corners have their vital
part to play but possibly the social corner has not been
stressed enough in player development.
The days when thousands of kids played in the street
or over the park in unstructured freedom are probably
not coming back. Society and our culture may have
changed to such an extent that such luxuries are no
longer possible in our modern western society – but
the people growing and developing are still human
beings and they need to go on their own learning
journey firstly as children, then teenagers, young adults
and adults – learning whether we like it or not is a life
long process.
Football is a learned activity and has a special learning
journey of its own. It is essential that the young players
are allowed to follow their own football learning journey
and sometimes as adults we fail them by attempting to
short cut the learning process for them by thinking that
we can accelerate things, but often slower learning with
skills and ideas taking a little longer to take root and
evolve is the best learning. Learning that sticks.
So what do we the adults need to do – the key is that
we have to understand the needs of the young players
as learners. People always need to be given
responsibility for and ownership of their learning –
after all, 90 per cent of the process goes on at their
end. They need to be given the licence to experiment
with new things free of the fear of failure, they need to
be challenged in a variety of ways and they need to be
trusted to get on with the learning (playing football) within the boundaries of
respect for others and good
behaviour that we (the adults) set and model. But most of all they need to have
fun and enjoyment playing the game they love because that’s how they learn best.
If we can do these things the adult impact may well be a positive one.
“SHOW THEM HOW TO RESPECT
THE REFEREE, APPLAUD GOOD PLAY
(THE OPPOSITION’S TOO) AND
BEHAVE WELL IN VICTORY AND
DEFEAT. IF YOU DO, YOU’LL SEE
SOME FANTASTIC FOOTBALL
PLAYED BY HAPPY KIDS DOING
WHAT THEY LOVE”
John Allpress is the National Player Development
Coach for the seven to sixteen age ranges. He has
designed and directed The FA Youth Coaches
course (Under-eleven years and 12 to 16 years)
whilst also planning and delivering coaches
working within Professional Clubs, Academies and
Centres of Excellence. John has worked at Ipswich Town Football Academy and the
Under 15's at both
Tottenham Hotspur and Charlton Athletic.
A simple coaching philosophy!
TELL
ME … … I FORGET
SHOW
ME … … I REMEMBER
INVOLVE ME … … I UNDERSTAND
Designed and managed by JG Design email
jgoody@footieresults.org
