As part of my personal development, I decided that attaining my level 2 certificate in football would provide the ideal opportunity to progress my own skills and to use them to ensure the group I have been working with over the previous year are given the best guidance available.
The initial meeting consisted of the course leader, who is an A-license qualified coach, conducting the session using myself and the other participants as his subjects. He felt that this method allowed us as coaches to experience the coaching process from another perspective. By running through the whole process, planning, delivery, and evaluation, I realised certain areas in my own style were lacking in depth, and could attribute to the fact that some skills explored during previous sessions had not been fully understood, and therefore reached.
One area that was made apparent during the training day was my poor structuring of drills. By assuming that the children understood certain elements of the game, I bypassed focussing primarily on their cognitive or associative motor knowledge of the technical aspect. My method moved straight onto the skill without covering the fundamentals. Reflecting on previous sessions I can make a distinct connection between advancing to this stage and the players finding difficulty implementing the learned skill into a game.
My planning for this session was focussing on ensuring the players fully grasped the concept of the drill and what was required of them. As I was working without the manager I felt it was an ideal chance to gain total control, and conduct the session at my own pace. One sentiment which I referred back to was what the coach suggested regarding developing players skills according to the need of the team. This insight was shared by McGeechan (2002) when he agreed that each session should have a definite purpose within the overall season plan. Working on this basis I decided upon concentrating on one theme during sessions and fully utilizing the skill until grasped. The theme I decided to work on was ‘finishing’ as during previous games and training sessions I had witnessed a poor return of goals:chances created. Many times the players had fallen into the habit of trying to score the perfect technical goal and missing the target, when poking the ball with a toe or knee would have sufficed.
I used much of the information given by my mentor regarding conducting the session, and broke the drill down into four parts. The first two were looking at technique, whereby simple instructions were that a pass to the forward was required by the feeder, and an accurate shot was required by the forward. This progressed to the feeder making a ‘wing-like’ run before delivering, and the strikers to communicate with each other as who was to receive the pass.
The focus on the basic technique of the players was to monitor how well they transfer this ability when forced to transfer it into a skilled movement. Shedden (1986) maintains that it is not possible to be skilled without a high level of technical excellence and knowledge of the game.
Further progression was required in the skill aspect whereby I asked the forwards to ensure they were aware of the goalkeeper’s position and in that instance to place the ball out of his reach. Also, for one of them to time his run as the second man supporting. This worked well in an unopposed drill. The final part of the progression was introducing a defender to oppose the threat posed by the attackers. Observing this section of the drill I saw a definite improvement in the skill worked on by most of the players. However, success in training is rarely representative of how a learned skill will fare when transferred into a game where players are facing opposition of unknown quantities. Schmidt (1991) defines skill learning in terms of relative permanency. The relative permanency principle means that performance should be observed on several occasions prior to considering the effectiveness of any coaching activity and/or athlete behaviour. Salmoni (1984) backed up this claim by stating that practice performance viewed in isolation is considered as a relatively poor indicator of permanency. This means that skill acquisition behaviour may not be predictive of skill retention behaviour, or of the ability to perform skill transfer. The author goes on to explain that the various factors that affect the development of retention and transfer behaviour are critical in an understanding of the skill learning process, and a major role of skill learning research has been to identify these key factors.
Concerning the session, I feel that by breaking the drill down and progressing it slowly was a far more effective approach than previously explored by myself. When planning in the future this technique will act as a framework and hopefully produce similar results of learning as this session brought about. However, as highlighted I will use a theme and drills that are new to the players as I feel they will find it more beneficial to experience unknown situations that will require the use of some previously learned technical movements.

McGeechan, I. (2002) in Jones, R., Armour, K., and Potrac, P. (2004) Sports Coaching Cultures, From Practice to Theory, Routledge, New York.

Salmoni, A.W., et al (1984). Knowledge of results and motor learning: a review and critical appraisal. Psychol. Bull., 95, 355-86.

Schmidt, R.A., Motor Learning and Performance: From Principles to Practice. Human Kinetics.

Shedden, J. quoted in Sharp, B. (1986) Acquiring Skill in Sport, Sports Dynamic, UK.

I used this session to introduce the players to a more refined area of body conditioning and its importance in the game for injury prevention and ensuring performance levels would sustain the demands which the game delivers. I explained how sport specific stretching can have a more direct positive influence on the targeted muscles than other types such as static stretching. Asmussen & Boje (1945) noted that in addition to whole body exercises, a standardized sport-specific warm up should also be performed. Not only will this help to minimize the risk of injury but it also optimizes the functioning of various physiological mechanisms which can affect performance. To get the players more involved in shaping the session, and helping them gain a clearer understanding of physiological demands, I asked them to each choose and demonstrate a movement which could occur during a game of football. This was then isolated, for example, making a pass, then slowed down, exaggerated and repeated. Reilly & Stirling (1993) maintained that the incident of injuries over a season were less for players who paid attention to jogging, technique, and game rehearsed skills than those who warmed up for the same duration but who had a more general type of warm up regime. When running through the individual movements I asked the team to name which muscles they felt they were conditioning and why it was important to ensure the given muscle was correctly warmed up. The result was that they had taken in much of the information I had passed on to them regarding physiology during previous sessions. I felt that the democratic way I conducted this part of the session was a good way to monitor the players’ knowledge and understanding of the warm-up process and the role it plays in conditioning for the game ahead.
The follow up to the stretching was a fun use of imagery whereby the full size football pitch represented the U.K. and that players were to make their way down from one end to another. The manager and I would give descriptions of certain obstacles the team have to overcome, for example, a mountain in Scotland that had to be run up. On this signal a ten second sprint on the spot was required by all. This routine worked well as it took the players’ thoughts off the physical demand of the task, and on concentrating on overcoming what was being asked of them. Thadani (2006) recommends focus techniques when warming players up, for example, giving players short questions to answer quickly, such as arithmetic or spellings. This can result in the promotion of the mental side of the players ensuring they are alert and ready for the task, which in turn can be seen as a vital component in retaining their interest. I feel that this approach heralded a good response by the team and reminded me that as young teenagers they require stimulation in the form of fun to maintain their interest in what they are doing.

Asmussen, E. & Boje, O. (1945) Body temperature and capacity for work. Acta Physiol. Scand. 10, 1-22

Reilly, T. & Stirling, A. (1993) Flexibility, warm-up, and injuries in mature games players, in Kinanthropometry IV (eds W. Duquet and J.A.P. Day), E & FN Spon, London, pp. 119-23.

Thadani, S. (2006) Soccer Conditioning, A & C Black, London

As the ongoing problem of poor communication continued throughout training sessions, and to a further extent, during games, I devised drills which required vocal input by players in order to succeed. It largely involved players being made to tell an impartial individual in the drill if, when, and where they wanted the ball to be played to them. Players were awarded a point should their communication pay off, and a further point should they complete a pass after receiving the ball. The punishment, should communication be lacking, was to deduct points. All individuals were asked to score themselves honestly. Cross & Lyle (2001) suggested that by including this competitive element into drills, it can be viewed as an opportunity for athletes to air their competitive frustrations, and let off steam. Initially the children were being deducted several points due to their poor grasp of the subject. However, as the drill continued, and the manager and I intervened throughout, making simple suggestions, the connection between announcing their position to their team-mate, and then receiving the ball, became apparent to the players.
The exercise ended with positive results as all players were able to complete the task and attain points as the competition demanded, however, the poor beginning of the drill was a direct result of my own bad planning of the session, and my communication of the task requirements. My directions were only verbal, with no demonstration by myself to ensure the players understood what was being transmitted to them. To my dismay much of the exercise was lost to back-tracking and reiterating what had already been explained. Argyle (1988) has estimated that non-verbal messages are 16 times more powerful than verbal ones. This area of my personal progression is one that I feel I must improve on in order to succeed in improving performers. This session made me aware of how important ‘showing’ rather than ‘telling’ is in sport, and how much of an impact it can have on the outcome of a task. Christina & Corcos (1994) highlighted the importance of using additional visual information when verbally explaining a new skill, especially to young performers. They also broke the demonstration process down into four catagories;
Attention- getting the attention of the performers
Retention- repeating important cues so the athlete understands the movement and remembers key points
Reproduction- organizing the demonstration progressively to help the athlete develop their motor program sufficiently to be able to perform the skill consistently.
Motivation- motivating the athletes to want to learn the new skill and/or want to improve their current skills.

The motivation area is seen as a critical component in determining whether or not athletes will benefit from the demonstration process. This will become a defining factor in my mentoring role in the future as I have seen the negative effects low motivation can have on a group of players. I feel my sessions may have to adapt to make room for focusing on boosting players’ motivation for the game.

Argyle, M. (1981) Social behaviour, in Psychology for Teachers, (ed D. Fontana), Macmillan/BPS, London

Christina, R. W. & Corcos D. M. (1994) Coaches Guide To Teaching Sport Skills, Human Kinetics, Champaign, Illinois

Cross, N. & Lyle, J. (2003) The Coaching Process- Principles and Practice for Sport, Butterworth-Heinemann, Edinburgh