Season 1 Summary

This week saw my last session of the 2020-21 season. Of all the years to get into coaching, I couldn’t have picked a worse one really – COVID-19 disruptions wreaked havoc across the world and football was suspended or cancelled altogether on numerous occasions throughout the season.

When I set out on this journey at the start of the season, I had three clear goals in mind:

  1. Get as much hands-on experience as possible
  2. Learn from as many coaches as possible
  3. Earn my FA Level 1 coaching badge and (potentially) Level 1 Goalkeeping

1. Hands-on experience

Number 1, as mentioned, was frequently disrupted throughout the course of the season, but I was still able to run a good number of sessions and gain some great hands-on experience.

I’ve been lucky enough to find a well-established local team, with a healthy sized squad, regular weekly training and a professional setup in place. This has really allowed me to get stuck in and work on building myself up as a coach by delivering useful, regular sessions that are vital to my learning process.

My main focus throughout the year has been on working specifically with the goalkeepers on a number of occasions, creating “drills” (I don’t like that term!) and exercises to replicate different match-realistic scenarios for them to keep them sharp and ready for games.

Some sessions we focused on footwork and movement, some honed in on handling and general saving whilst others concentrated on things like crossing scenarios. I tried to introduce as much variety as I could to keep things fresh, with a focus on making each session both useful and enjoyable. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, working with senior amateur goalkeepers presents a unique challenge for coaching, as you are not looking to teach these guys how play like you perhaps would if working with children and you have to remember these are players who are paying to play – they’re there because they enjoy playing football, they don’t want to spend their evenings doing shuttle runs or boring, repetitive drills.

With this in mind I always focused on my sessions being relevant to situations they are likely to face in-game, whilst also being enjoyable and fun. One particular example of this was an adaption of a concept I spotted on YouTube called “Goalie Wars“, whereby you pull two goals close together and have the keepers score as many goals as they can against each other. This proved to be a great laugh for all involved, but again helped them work on useful in-game skills as well. It worked a variety of distribution techniques (as you could score from drop kicks, ground kicks or throws) as well as intensive shot-stopping ability, whilst offering a competitive edge as each keeper tried to outscore the other.

Aside from the dedicated goalkeeper coaching, I was also offered the opportunity to work with the outfield players on a number of occasions and in differing scenarios. Whilst I’ve always maintained that I want the focus of my coaching journey to be on working with goalkeepers, I’m more than happy to garner experience in any way I can and step out of my comfort zone whenever the opportunity arises.

Over the course of the season I took a number of shooting drills with the team, coming up with varying scenarios to test different aspects of shooting, which included quick one-two passing, turning the defender and general attacking movement, amongst other things.

I also stepped up to take a full 20 minute session for the entire team on one occasion, where I developed an exercise based around keeping possession in a confined space, working on passing, movement and defensive work and with a scoring system in place to add a competitive edge. This was a big learning curve for me as I had to take control of around 15 players across two small pitches focusing on an area that I was far from a specialist in. If I’m honest, imposter syndrome really started to creep in too – “who was I to tell these guys how to pass and tackle? I’m an unqualified goalkeeper coach, so why should they listen to me?!”

This session itself went OK and I think I did a good job of explaining how it was going to work to a point where everyone knew their tasks. That said, there was definitely plenty of scope for improvement, particularly around my vocality and with regards to adapting and changing the session as it progressed. One thing that I know that I need to work on is to bring more authority and confidence when delivering sessions, particularly to large groups, have faith in the process and be assured in what I’m doing. I also learnt that it’s important to keep relaying information throughout the exercise and to keep the players engaged as otherwise there’s potential for them to get bored very quickly.

Whilst taking full-team sessions is not where I see my coaching future, it was certainly a worthwhile undertaking and I would definitely be open for doing more of this in future if required.

2. Learning from others

From the very outset of my journey I’ve known that learning from others would be a key part of success. Finding established coaches (both goalkeeping or otherwise) and speaking to or observing them at work really does provide fantastic insight into how to get the best out of the players you work with. I’ve spoken to some great people on Twitter and found some really useful YouTube channels too, but there are a few specific people that I want to mention:

  • Tom O’Leary (first team manager, Cockfield United) – Tom has been very open and accepting of me joining the setup at Cockfield and has allowed me to work with the keepers (and other players) on a weekly basis. Giving me complete freedom to do whatever I feel was right has been fantastic as it’s forced me to think on my feet and take full responsibility for planning my sessions
  • Paul Walker (goalkeeper/goalkeeper coach, AFC Sudbury) – Paul was kind enough to let me observe a session of his back in December, which was a very useful experience. As well as watching how he coached, we also had a great chat where I gained some invaluable insight into his journey into coaching and how that path might look for myself
  • Glen Johnson (goalkeeper coach, Dag & Red) – Having known Glen for a number of years now, his expertise and knowledge of goalkeeping is crucial. He’s always been open to me asking him questions about coaching and goalkeeping in general and is very happy to help out in that regard. I hope to be able to observe one of his (professional) sessions in future too.

3. Coaching badges

This one, unfortunately, has been a bit of a non-starter this year. With the onset of the pandemic, the FA suspended all their coaching courses towards the end of 2020 and then, when they were opened up again, it was only to those who were already signed up. The FA Level 1 has now been binned and will be replaced with an online-only alternative in the summer, so I’ll be looking to get myself onto that as soon as possible.

The FA’s “Bootroom” portal does have a number of online courses already and I worked my way through those right at the start of my journey, including the entry-level “FA Playmaker” course. If I’m honest, I’m not sure how much value it adds to someone with a basic understanding of football as it seems far more geared towards parents who want to help out with their kid’s Sunday teams, but knowledge is power so I’m glad I completed it anyway.

Summary

It’s been a step learning curve in my first year and the COVID disruptions haven’t helped. That said, I feel like I’ve learned a lot about coaching and have grown as a person in the process too. I’m under no illusions that I still have a long way to go and therefore look forward to continuing developing myself when the new season kicks off later this year.

In terms of ongoing plans, I’m hopeful to be able to continue working with Cockfield, I’ve got to know the players and staff well and it’s a great group to be a part of. The flexibility of what I can do with the goalkeepers there is fantastic and really enables me to put my mind to work planning sessions to benefit them as well as myself.

Once the new FA courses launch, I will also be looking to complete as many of these as possible as there is certainly significant merit in adding qualifications to experience.

Time for a few weeks off now as the season winds down, then we go again in a couple of months!