Monthly Archives: July 2011

Over the years, I’ve attended a good number of coaching sessions. Some of them have been exciting inventive sessions, some have been simple sessions I’ve seen a hundred times before. As coaches, we often feel that our own philosophy of playing & coaching the game is the best way and rightly so. We are nothing without strong belief in the methods we use with our teams but in football and in particular coaching there is always (yes, always!) room for extra knowledge.

In recent years I’ve tried to live by the rule that no matter what football event I attend, there is a potential learning opportunity to be taken advantage of. I have spent countless of hours watching sessions with fellow coaches in the past (some of whom in fairness, couldn’t find a positive word for almost any session in the world!) and not come away at the end of the day with anything meaningful to add to my coaching arsenal. Perhaps it was because I was easily lured into the blind alley of only looking for negatives, an almost undeniable trait of we Irish! We do love a moan and sometimes sadly, it even seems we love it more than football itself.

Nowadays, perhaps through experience and old age (the grey hairs becomming even more frequent!), I try to steer well clear of negative sources at coaching sessions. I also try to live by the mantra that there has to be at least ‘one thing’ I can learn or reinforce from a particular game or session that can be transferred into my own coaching career.

Some times they may be as simple as using equipment in a certain way (e.g. one I saw in the past was the use of a different coloured sock for a player’s weaker foot at training to encourage use and to allow for easy visual analysis – genius!). Other times they can simply be a variation or progression on a particular session that breeds new life into a tired old practise. Even sessions that obviously don’t go particularly well for the coach in question can provide little positive reminders to yourself about the many pitfalls of coaching. There’s always something, always.

So in closing, my simple advice to any coach at any level, would be to always try to pick up something, just one thing, for yourself at every session you attend or happen to be walking past in the local park. Stay away from the negativity where possible, it’s utterly contagious and ultimately serves no real good.

Despite what our favourite sporting satellite TV channels might suggest, I’ve yet to meet a football ‘expert’. Never forget that for the top coaches in the world, every day is a school day in football and that’s good enough for me.