LEYTON Orient Community Sports Programme (LOCSP) Senior Development Officer and Leyton Orient FC Centre of Excellence Coach Danny Fenner recently attended Keele University in Newcastle-under-Lyme to complete the Football Association (FA) Youth Coaches Award.
Trialled last year, the award aims to expand the knowledge and philosophy surrounding coaching youngsters.
Danny, 26, who works for both Leyton Orient FC and LOCSP was invited by O's Assistant Manager Dean Smith to attend the course and tells us how he found the experience.
"It's important for coaches to realise that it is about the players and not the club or the coaches. Young players should go out and express and enjoy themselves. Players at Academies and Centres of Excellence are talented and gifted so they know when they have made a mistake and this course helped to expand the knowledge surrounding coaching these youngsters.
The course ran from 9am - 7pm for seven days and all the students stayed in the Keele University student halls of accommodation. We went straight onto the field on the first day and the FA coaches showed us the templates about how to coach the kids, with a question and answer session following that.
Dawn Scott, the England Senior Women Sports Scientist, showed us new drills and techniques before were shown what other countries' coaches do in the warm up. For example, in Brazil, coaches get their players to dance in the warm up!
Tracey Lewis, the England Women's Physiotherapist, then showed the coaches different techniques regarding the rehabilitation of players from injury. This was particularly interesting as normally coaches wouldn't have anything to do with the rehabilitation. However, knowing why a player may be particularly heavy on one side for example is useful and we were taught particular core exercises and drills relating to this.
We then had the FA Psychotherapist explain to use about talking to young people and adults in footballing terms and giving them ownership. We were asked 'How many times do we actually praise a player in a game?' Usually, it is just negative comments when they have done something wrong, but when they do something right we should praise them all the time. Instead of saying 'Well done Timmy', we were taught to say 'Timmy, well done' so it gets the players attention first and everyone else can see what they have done.
We also learnt aspects about growth, nutrition, testing and assessment with a really good overview of Academy and Centre of Excellence football and how players are treated - something I feel should be followed all the way down to the grassroots level.
The FA have been looking at the percentage of players that are picked for Academy and Centre football and found that over 70% of players are picked who were born between September to December and it gradually becomes less as the year moves on with around 5% being chosen who were born in April.
Young people in September are much more physically developed than those in April - something that some coaches don't even think of. The problem is that the young people born in September eventually get caught up by the young people in August, so it shows the FA are evolving in their thinking.
Having a club philosophy is important to filter down to the grassroots and community and with a lot of other professional academy staff here - David Busst from Coventry, Scott Green from Bolton as well as representatives from Southend United, Northampton and Chelsea - it was good to get different thoughts and experiences from those involved in the same profession.
It's important to have this philosophy filter through to the grassroots and community as these are the people that do all the groundwork for the Academies and Centres of Excellence. These are the people that we should be concentrating on as they are doing a great job and if they can have this extra knowledge then, perhaps, the players coming through can be even better than they are presently.
We are lucky at Leyton Orient FC to have the Community Sports Programme which gives the young people from the area a chance to play for the youth team. Through the Leyton Orient Advanced Soccer School (LOASS) we have sent lots of players for trials at the club and, combining this with our LOCSP estate-based sessions, we have had four young people in four years make it through to the Leyton Orient FC Centre of Excellence.
The pathway is there and the young people are given a chance, we are lucky, and it would be good for all teams to have it.
This course has greatly benefited me as I work with 12-16 year olds which it was aimed at. It's good to know there are other philosophies out there but it's not about taking everything we have learnt and implementing it as they may not work with particular players or a particular age group; but there are lots of things that may be able to aid me with my coaching.
Martin Ling, Kevin Nugent, Dean Smith and Ross Embleton are all open-minded about new philosophies and are all trying to aid my personal and professional development. They have treated me really well and it's about pulling all this knowledge together.
Leyton Orient FC has seven academy teams and we are going from strength-to-strength. We have enthusiastic staff like Steve Embleton and Steve Donovan guiding the younger coaches in a nice catchment area and the system works as can be seen in the professional contracts awarded to Solomon Shields and Loick Pires for this season.
It's a nice, friendly atmosphere at the club and it's about the young people coming away with something whether or not it is football-related. It could be personal development or an experience that will help them in later life, but whether or not they get signed or released hopefully they will have a skill that the can use on in later life.
With this course it shows that the FA are open-minded as well about new philosophies and they can be used at some point. It gives you more confidence as you have more to offer to the young people and that's what it is all about - the young people."
