Sport Strategy - Performance sport what needs to change

The government’s Sport Strategy consultation has asked for views on high performance sport I would like to add some ideas about a change in direction that might further increase our international success.

Some considerations:

• All teams sports except Hockey had high performance funding withdrawn after 2012
• Nearly 40% of GB medal winners in the last three Olympic Games have been public school educated yet under 6% of the school population is in public schools
• GB have not won a “strength” (Weight-lifting, Wrestling, Athletic Throws) medal for many Olympic cycles
• England Netball have received over the last number of four year cycles over £18 million for high performance and still stand as third in the world in the same top four as for the last 12 years.
• Hockey are now winning European medals after four continuous cycles of funding
• The talent pool of English performance coaches is regarded by many sports as poor
• The UK Sport “no compromise” approach to funding has successfully funded sporting success but does not allow for long term investment in major world sports
• For me high performance needs four elements;
• Well-funded and support fit athletes/players
• High quality coaches with high level technical and scientific support
• High quality facilities
• High level regular competition

So what needs to change? In some cases no a lot. The no compromise approach to funding by UK Sport has been a great success for sports that are generally individually based and in many cases a link between excellent aerobically strong athletes with excellent scientific support and world leading technology. I cannot and wouldn’t criticise the marginal gains approach of Sir Dave Brailsford he is the other key component excellent single minded leadership. So that approach should stay and continue to support the successful individually sports.

However further consideration should be given to increasing the success in team and strength sports. These need a different approach.

Hockey’s recent success of becoming European Champions has been through strong leadership, mature coaching and a squad that spans at least 15+ years. All of the players have been through a long term cycle of support where near certainty of funding has led to an ability to grow a system and adult squads that can accommodate injury and still maintain a high standard.

Yet funding was withdrawn from other team’s sports just when change was starting to make a difference. The difference with Olympic team sports is the world plays them not just the Commonwealth! Over 200 national teams entre qualifying competition for Football, Basketball, Volleyball (the indoor game) and Handball. Compare this to cycling or rowing and they do not appear to reach 100 countries entering. So government should think again about a long term funding programme for team sports so we can compete at the highest level consistently. 

Alongside this investment should be made to improve the quality of our best inter-club competition in those Olympic and potentially Commonwealth team sports. This in the main shouldn’t be left to the governing bodies to run and organise but could be a franchised regional operation based on the major urban areas. The franchises should adopt the American model and equalisation to make sure completion is regularly at a high level. Franchises should be funded through government and other commercial sources. However the scale of these franchises needs to be multiple sport covering Basketball, Volleyball, Handball and potentially Netball. The Netball super-league is a model that could work for a number of indoor team sports and by bringing four sports into one franchise the economies and benefits of scale should enable the franchises to flourish.

To gain success at international level coaches are essential and we have not developed enough quality English coaches who are able to commit to coaching at the performance level. Some radical changes are needed to how we develop coaches. UKCC has pushed coaches down a route of being great coaching session coaches but not able to coach a game and learn and deal with instant decision making that can positively change the game. 

Very little cross sport exchanges are entered into either. I made a point of watching the Netball at the Commonwealth games last year and was tearing what little hair I have out at the way on three occasions England appeared unable and unprepared to deal with the last two minutes of a game. 

Throwing away a potential gold medal game and then losing out in the Bronze medal game due to in my view poor coach preparation. Apparently they practiced closing out the game the day before for the first time. I learnt way back as a basketball coach you need to practice the last two minutes running all possible scenarios for at least 20 minutes of every two hour in season training session. Just o example of where cross sport cooperation could work. Sport Science should also play a part in generically developing coaches. So we need to change the coaching system for coaches to learn and experience coaching the game and not just coaching drills.

I would like to see a change to how we identify and nurture athletes for the strength sports. Prior to the Olympic Games UK Sport led a successful recruitment for tall people. Let’s try the same for strong people and start to build hubs focused on strength and then guide athletes into Weight-Lifting, Wrestling or field athletics. These are multi-medal Olympic sports and we should be taking an approach similar to the Chinese in focusing on these to move even further up the medal table.

This approach along with the investment in team sports should address the imbalance in the educational background of high performance athletes. It is an accepted norm in participation sport that disproportionate funding leads to a re-dressing of the social imbalance so why not take this same approach to performance athletes? “No compromise” is very effective but for those who have not been able through financial, educational establishment or family to get up the performance ladder. Yet many who are unable to fund this journey methods should be identified to support those from middle and working class homes to get into the performance funding process.

So the key messages for me are:

• Continue with “no-compromise” for individual sports
• Commit long term funding to Olympic team sports
• Develop multisport performance competition hubs on a franchise basis
• Invest in game based coach education programmes
• Encourage sports to engage in cross sport collaborations
• Identify a range of funding mechanisms to enable a broader base of athletes achieve international status

How should sports organisations react to a new participation agenda

In further consideration of the Strategy for Sport consultation I want to pose some suggestions on what sports participation is or could be?

My View is that government should consider what sports participation activity is popular with the citizens of England and invest in a whole life experience in that sport. For example most adult males have played teams sports at some point in their lives and in many cases this ends in their thirties yet the enthusiasm and love for the sport is maintained. Government should invest in NGBs developing and delivering modified versions of particularly team’s sports to maintain people’s engagement in their favourite sport. Initiatives like walking Football/Basketball would be encouraging to prolong adults engagement in team sport.  Football are reporting considerable growth in "super-vets" football with people well in excess of 60 wanting and engaging in football on a regular basis.

 The challenge for female participation appears to making sure the right offer is available and the ability to move between activities is made easily accessible. For example our research from the Sportivate programme indicates that women like to start participation as an individual but are more likely to sustain participation in a team sport environment. Therefore local sports provision should enable women to move between sporting experiences with a transfer system that does not disadvantage the providers.  

 More longitudinal tracking of different ages should be undertaken to demonstrate how people change their sporting participation through their lives. Sport clubs should be encouraged through financial investment to become bigger and offer wider opportunities for different age groups similar to the western European club model where clubs own and run municipal facilities for the betterment of their towns and communities.  

This investment should be focused on developing local leaders and community groups supported by local business and local authorities to move to greater ownership of community facilities similar to the Castle pool in Birmingham. This is now in community trust ownership following an asset transfer from Birmingham City Council. I am proud to be a Trustee of this organisation and we strive to provide a high quality community based provision.

Through our past work, addressing inequality does not have a short term answer it takes long term investment in people and infrastructure. The development of leaders within communities is critical and the work of Streetgames has started to address these inequalities. However this investment should be invested in building sustainable local communities sporting bodies similar to the Scandinavian model of sustainable “community sports clubs”. 

One of the key discussion points emerging is should governing bodies have a role in developing and delivering participation. This is a fundamental question that needs addressing as many just need funds to governing their sport and have difficulty in expanding the player base. The size and organisation of smaller and new sports is the challenge to growth. We see the process very clearly as we have adopted this approach with a number of smaller sports such as Korfball and Roller sport.

the following process should be undertaken to identify the relevance of sport to British Society. 

• Undertake research to understand the market  
• Utilise this insight to develop suitable coaching, leadership and activator education courses to build an infra-structure of coaches and leaders  
• Reinvest surpluses made into the sport’s development  

 We believe there is a role for a central body that can provide shared services to a range of governing bodies that can through size offer a collective benefit. We have successfully offered this to a number of governing bodies for their coach education provision. This centralisation has enabled governing bodies to concentrate on developing coaches rather than organising courses whereas we have offered a collective planning and booking service at no additional cost to the NGB whilst also giving over £160,000 in royalty return to the NGBs. This has only worked as we have now reached a scale to be able to provide this collective service.

This model could be applied to other NGB services including basic memberships services as we do with Korfball, Development planning and delivery as we previously did for Archery and insight services which we do for Sportivate but also have provided for a range of governing bodies and CSPs.

If you think about building a team of governing body apprenticeships at a local level in line with the government growth model for apprenticeships supporting local sports participation activity linking to ongoing provision with specific targets you can see that a focused company could concentrate solely on that delivery and not be side-lined by other issues that arise from time to time on a day to day basis in governing bodies.

The landscape will change but its how do organisations manage that change and work collectively and use external bodies to help meet their needs but my fear is that many organisation will chase the money as it has been traditionally distributed and not take a semi-commercial view on developing sport specific participation.

 p.s. if you like this post vote for me in the UK active awards!http://www.ukactive.com/events/forthcoming-events/active-training-awards-2015/vote-for-most-inspiring

Strategy for Sport - Future landscape?

The strategy for sport is causing great debate about who should do what but I felt I'd look at what the landscape could look like given the approaches government have taken to other sectors.

Some observations:

·         This and the last government have moved education to nearly entirely government to school in terms of funding cutting out everything in between

·         The same could be said for the health service - direct from government to hospital or general practice.

·         This policy was applied to school sport with the Youth Sport Trust being cut out and the Primary School Sport Premium going directly to junior schools.

·         This government have closed a number of national agencies turning them into trusts e.g. British Waterways to the Canals and River Trust

·         The current investment into a "governing body centrist investment Strategy" only sees 38% of Sport England's funding going directly into governing bodies.

So is this political philosophy going to be applied to sport? In a time when everyone is having to tighten belts even further (will be 24 waist soon after previous belt tightening) how will sport be restructured?

From my experience this is the most in-depth strategy review  I have seen and I have seen a few! With ministers leading each section clearly cross government commitment is already confirmed. So therefore sport can not hide away thinking it will be OK. Also given that other government departments have had to make cuts why should sport be not affected? It is also worth noting in a time recession has gone on around us some governing bodies have seen a ten fold plus increase in funding having staffing structures they could only dream of pre-Olympic confirmation in 2005.

 So what could the landscape look like? Could it remove middle placed sports organisations? I have heard people say if that or this national sports organisations didn't get funding who would notice? So are services provided by Skills Active, Sports coach UK, women in sport, sporting equals, EFDS, AfPE, Sport & Recreation Alliance essential or desirable? Can they learn how the Youth Sport Trust has responded, survived and clarified its market position following the removal of significant central funding? Should other national organisations do the same?

 What of Sport England? Should it be allowed to raise as well as distribute funds? Could it change its contract management role to allow others to oversee implementation? Could it become a campaigning body for sport supported by research and lobbying or isn't that the responsibility of the Sport and Recreation Alliance?

 County Sport Partnerships are now seen has essential delivery and strategic organisations in the sports landscape. Twelve years ago Local Authorities were seen as essential but where are they now?

With all the project trimmings the County Sport Partnerships collectively receive over £50 million a year. Is this best value for increasing participation or does the network need to clarify its position as delivery agencies solely and not concern themselves with strategic connections - or visa-versa? Look at progressive partnerships like West/South Yorkshire concentrating on delivery or the Black Country focused on economic regeneration. What is the best model for investment going forward. All have been charged with raising funds outside of Sport England funds. Wise but how many are on target?

And what about governing bodies? Could the mentioned mixed economy of delivery where the responsibility of increasing participation is shared across the whole of the sector be the way forward? Can Governing bodies on their own be the sole bodies responsible for increasing participation? The mixed economy approach could see the following role going forward:

·         Governing bodies: responsible for increasing participation among its member clubs and satellites where they have influence and a measure of control.

·         Private leisure sector: taking a significant role through governmental investment seek to raise levels of participation. This should be “contract managed” by governing bodies?

·         * Private/Voluntary sector sport development agencies: could provide collective service across governing bodies to cost effectively support the growth in governing body clubs, coaches whilst providing insight across the sector to the NGB’s. Could they provide specific services against national outcomes in coaching and expert advice?

·         County Sport Partnerships: Could provide participation delivery and coordination in set geographical areas.

·         Local Authorities: provide facilities to provide and grow facilities both formal and informal opportunities

This approach could enable NGB’s to return to solely serving their members and the private sector should seek to grow participation with the guidelines set by the NGBs. Medium and small NGBs? This then identifies waht  is the role of NGBs that an not significantly increase sports participation? Could they take a “shared services” approach to NGB development services in coach education, Club development, research and insight?

The private sector could provide these services against clear specifications from NGBs. We have experience in this area and meet the targets needed by NGBs and CSPs. A consolidated out-sourced service would provide a focused targeting of growth in coaches and clubs whilst also providing vital customer insight into the needs of the NGBs?

So the landscape may be very different come 2017 with more directly funded bodies delivering and less in the middle? I hope this gives food for thought and also I hope people think carefully about the role they can play in the future growth in participation. 

I might be wrong so please tell me differently? 

Strategy for Sport - apprenticeships

Apprenticeships 

In the first of my blogs relating to the consultation for the national Strategy for sport I explore what apprenticeships could look like in the sports sector. 

As a training provider from apprenticeships in sport we feel many organisations are not realising the benefit and opportunity of employing apprenticeships as well as utilising the traineeship programme.  

From our experience sports organisations too readily employ graduates to positions without exploring the apprenticeship route not only in the delivery of sport and physical activity but in the administration and marketing of the services they provide. We feel that training providers can provide a service to increase the number of apprenticeships in sport but also see an increase in participation as a result.  

For those that don’t know apprenticeships are paid for by the employer and the training is funded nationally through the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) however that will change with an option through Trailblazer apprenticeship where the employer will draw down the funding and decide the training provider. It is also a myth that current employees cant take advantage of undertaking an apprenticeship. They can however funding for the apprentice changes at 19 where it moves to 50% and 25 where no funding is available.  

Each apprentice must undertake a NVQ which mainly in sport is the Activity Leadership NVQ, secondly they need to take a knowledge programme with depending on the pathway could be a level 2 coaching award for coaching or a level three in sport development through City and guilds. all apprenticeship must reach a certain level in English and Maths as well as undertaking employment rights.  

The biggest challenge in sport we feel is paying the apprentices' wages. We feel actions could include grants made through Sport England to employ staff should have conditions that a % of the employees should be apprenticeships. For example small and medium NGBS and CSP have a small workforce of development officers. Employing one expert development manager and a network of sport development apprenticeships within a geographical area possibly employed through a central body such as ours, local authorities or CSPs would ensure the investment into staff gains a greater utilisation. We also welcome  Ajid Javid, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills proposal for an Apprenticeship Levy on very big companies.  

However we at Sport Structures feel the real opportunity should be taken to develop networks of apprenticeships in suitable pathways. We do not feel there is one apprenticeship pathway that will be able to cover all. We feel that sport should be compelled to employ a % of government funded staff as apprenticeships and these to include the following frameworks: 

• Coaching 
• Outdoor activity  
• PE and School Sport  
• Fitness and Health 
• Business administration and customer service  
• Social media  

Further consideration needs to be given to the method of delivery of the education side of the apprenticeships and how these move further into the workplace through the development of staff within sporting organisations to tutor, assess and verify educational practice.  We at Sport Structures have seen through  an investment in staff development to enable them to educate, assess their own staff this has seen an improvement in not only how the apprentice is supported but all the staff within the company have seen an improvement in how they are supported trained and developed. 

Traineeships are also not greatly understood in the sector but they are an ideal pre-apprenticeships offer. Traneeships offer a real opportunity to engage people who have not had the best of time in education and need a change to develop a career in sport. We are Sport Structures have found Traineeships as an excellent pre-apprenticeship programme which enables young people to have a taste of what they may do as an apprenticeship and see if its right for them. 

At the other of the apprenticeship spectrum is the Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence. this is an excellent tool for developing potential athletes. It is different from other apprenticeships as the apprentices are not employed but part of a performance development programme. I do think the programme could be enhanced by engaging the apprentices in coach education courses, recognising that some governing bodies already do this. Another option should be to engage the apprentices in learnign about sport development as they could be the next sport development workforce.  

We at Sport Structures see the benefit of investing in the potential of young people and apprenticeships are an ideal way of fulfilling and embracing this potential. 

Learning Preferences maximise coaches learning experiences

I am always fascinated how people and why people learn in different ways. This has become more relevant to me when my dear Mother told me when I was in my late forties that I had been diagnosed as dyslexic when I was young but never told me as “nothing could have been done”. She encouraged me in my childhood years to go down a practical activity route; sport, catering etc and dragged me along to an interview for a course as a catering manager – thank goodness I hadn’t passed my English at the time!

Having said all that though my tutoring and teaching I have found that people need to have different ways to confirm that the learning is embedded and I am interested that some people just can’t learnt it in the same way as I do. I can assure you I have had many different experiences proving this. A highly intelligent boy at school when I was teaching needed any activity we were about to undertake written down so he could read it before starting, one boy needed showing particular movements as he couldn’t interpret a tactics board at time outs. This last one I learnt to my teams cost as we lost on the buzzer of a set play he didn’t execute as he didn’t understand the drawings on the tactics board.

That said clearly people wish to take in information and in tutors and coaches deliver information in a style that suits them. Much has been recently written about learning styles not existing mainly to challenge other academics work in my view but contextualising a way of demonstrating that coaches and tutors need to take into account that people learn in different ways is the critical aspect of this approach.

In the last three years I have delivered through Sport Structures a number of tutor training courses for coach tutors in sports including; Football, Basketball, Handball, Boxing and Swimming. In all of them I have asked learners to take the VARK test to identify learning preferences in the context to identify that people learn in different ways.

The assessments were carried out on course and prior to any delivery of taught sessions on learning styles. The VARK test assesses learning styles of participants within an adult learning environment and the definitions are as follows:

• VISUAL- learners who would like to see it on the whiteboard, flip charts, walls, graphics, pictures, colour. They are probably your creative students and love using colours
• AUDITORY-learners who would like to sit back and listen. They don't make a lot of notes
• READ/WRITE- learners who need to read the information for themselves and they take a lot of notes
• KINAESTHETIC-learners who cannot sit still for long, like to fiddle with things. They like to be actively involved in their learning.

My definitions come from a slightly different and less scientific interpretation. I ask people to take the "IKEA" test i.e. what do they do when they get an IKEA flat-packed item; to they read all the instructions laying all the pieces out before starting to construct, or read all the instructions then build or just get on with building and if some bits are left over then they can be kept for next time! A demonstration in my view of different approaches to delivery of learning.

Neil Fleming, the inventor of the VARK test, has developed the assessment of learning styles over the recent years from VAK to include the R for read write as he felt that this was not clearly enough defined. The analysis of the results was carried out through the VARK online assessment tool as we at Sport Structures hold a worldwide licence to assess learners in the VARK test.

The attendees were potential sports coach tutors who were at least level 2 in their chosen sport. The four cohorts who submitted responses were from Swimming and Football whilst an undisclosed number also had qualifications in other sports the overall group is therefore drawn from both team and individual sports coaching/tutoring.

The total number of responses was Ninety-five and all willingly took part and shared their scores. In the cases of these courses they were “closed” to the client to identify learners to attend the courses. At the end of each course all the learners were deemed as competent.

In taking the test I reiterated Fleming's guidance; 

“The results indicate their preferences but are not necessarily their strengths. This reduces the anxiety for respondents who may express the view that the questionnaire says they are not good readers or not visually strong.”

Results

Learning preferences 

The following charts show the results for the participants who have filled in the questionnaire. Where someone has filled in the questionnaire more than once, only the first of that person's responses is included.

Detailed learning preferences 

Participants with a Zero score for a modality

The first diagram show the broad preference of people's learning style. Clearly very KINAESTHETIC with second most a multiple preference. The second diagram looks into these preferences in more detail. However shows clearly Kinaesthetic is the most dominant in very strong, strong or mild. However what is surprising is that from the learners visual is very low and only appears in one segment with Auditory and Kinaesthetic. This is is surprising as all were sports people and have been through coach education courses where demonstration was seen as essential to learning. As described in the bar graph below a high percentage of learners scored zero on visual as a preference. 

Dominant learning preference 

Then analysing the most dominant as described above the most dominant was Kinaesthetic with Aural and second. From my experiences of using the test in its VAK days this is significantly different as Visual learning preference was second to Kinaesthetic. This clearly was the reason for Fleming splitting the Visual element of the test. 

What does this tell us?

From the results it is confirms that most groups will be drawn from a mixed learning background and a range of learning styles. However from the results it demonstrates a clear preference to Kinaesthetic learning and therefore guides tutor to put an emphasis on this approach. Although the majority of learners have a mixed preference to their learning.

" Work and life experiences may blur differences between preferences as people learn to use Visual, Aural, Read/write and Kinesthetic modes in new situations. Preferences may also be masked by experiences."

What is surprising is that Visual is the lowest learning style. This contradicts with the assumption that people learn well through watching demonstrations.  The results challenge this convention. In so many coach education courses for which this cohort where to be tutors their is an emphasis on demonstration. If a cohort of potential new coaches are of a similar preference then is learning  likely to be maximised? 

One Boxing tutor interpreted the results thus:

"As we are kinaesthetic in our preference then were prefer to "do the demonstration" which is obviously our preference. However this may not be the learner coaches preference and they may be "chomping at the bite" to get on with doing the activity"

The groups that took  the test were practical coaches and this could account for the reasonably high score of audio style and the lower score of read/write style. 

"As tutors sometimes we like the sound of our own voices too much"

The study, although limited in its scope of learners, clearly demonstrates the need for coach tutors to make courses more about kinaesthetic  learning with learners being allowed to self discover ways of coaching than previously considered. 

Furthermore this has had a fundamental effect on the delivery of Sport Structures courses making them more practical and learner centered that they previously were leading to greater satisfaction and greater likelihood of coaches enjoying the educational experience. 

My thanks to Dr Fleming and his model and I urge people to take the test! VARK  

Forty years of coaching and coaching education - part 1

In 1975 I started my long and some would say wholly uneventful forty years in coaching, coach education and more lately tutoring the future coach educators. So  slowly over forty years I've moved upstairs! To celebrate this war of attrition I thought it would be good to blog about the stages in my career from the first team I coached through teaching and coaching into coaching teams at national level and then on to systems development and now coach education development and implementation. Also I wanted to put on some sort of record who has influenced me and who I vaguely helped along the way (with a few old photos to help)

translation 

Schools Days and first coaching

I started to shape my love of coaching and teaching after a conversation with my three influential PE teachers abut how to develop a career in sport  At that time the only option was to enter into teaching - not sport science or sport development sport just good old teaching degree. I was Head Boy and the Head Teacher encouraged the Head Boy and Girl to volunteer in some way, I thought to get some experience of what it might be like to be a teacher and the three guys Vic Groves,  Keith  Stonebridge and Tony Hadley (no not the one out of Spandau Ballet but the one now in British athletics coaching sprints - more of him later) asked if I would like to coach the under 13 B football team against a few primary schools . " Hell yes" I said. Well, maybe without the H word.  So I was appointed to my first coach's position. I arranged my first coaching session and did a plan! I played defence against attack trying to set a pattern for the future crunch games. I 'd got my track suit (orange) my whistle round my neck. This was the time when the film KESS  had just come out with the classic football scene with Brian Glover.    So I had an instant role model! 

On to the game - I needed to be dressed right so I needed a rain coat or so I thought? Could be completely misinterpreted These Days  Why a rain coat - well because Villa manager Ron Saunders had a rain coat. - Why else ?    So I went off as a 17 year old with a load of 12 and 13 year old's, not a teacher in sight, for a Saturday morning fixture  against the primary school locally -  children playing against a year younger. How Times Have Changed. I cannot  remember the score but I think we won 3- 2 . I'd got the coaching bug.  I carried on coaching that year with great encouragement from the PE Staff who I can not thank enough for giving me the chance.

So football was the sport to coach but I'd also reached a good level of fitness and Tony Hadley needed someone to get points in the 400 meters hurdles for our school, Arthur Terry, in the Sutton Schools Athletics championships- so through blackmail so I was convinced to do it - never forgiven him and I still remember coming off the last bend and thinking I left behind my lungs. Still had my tracksuit so was nicknamed the "flying carrot"  

So onwards to College and the bachelor of education specialising in PE. 

College years

I went to  West Midlands College of Higher Education  (now University of Wolverhampton Walsall campus) to undertake a Bachelor of Education specialising in PE . To put things into context this was the first year teacher training was fully degree only. Before then you could become a teacher gaining a teaching certificate (T.Cert) by doing a three year course with five 'O' levels although you could by invitation stay on for a forth year to gain a degree!  The year ahead of me had 40 PE students and we were nine and one of the nine was a dance student. Five blokes and four women embarking on three years of teaching training and social the life that comes with Higher Education. I was for my sins social secretary and booked Alvin Stardust and Mungo Jerry amongst others. 

First lecture - educational dance welcome to the world of teaching

Being taken through educational theory and the philosophy of physical education came secondary to Wednesday afternoon sport!  Football, basketball and cricket dominated my college life.  But as with all student teams coaches were not thought of unless someone was injured could do it.  So that's how I started coaching basketball. We had a group of enthusiastic sports team clumsy guys, mainly rugby players and we needed them whipping into shape for a tournament! I had played a little and so I was keen to take on the organising.   We asked one of our lecturers to coach us. He agreed and started with setting up man to man defence - we agreed with the approach or what would now be called "philosophy" but playing man to man needs an element of mobility, body awareness, balance and agility  - not renowned in the rugby players of the day!  I had a badly twisted ankle, so my first coaching experience was to change that and go to a zone with an  offence of pass it around a lot until the big guy (6 '6 Second row brute) got free to put a layup in -  shooting outside the key = 0%  .  We did OK in the tournament and beat the rivals Dudley Local which was the main aim    So what did I learn as a coach - coach to a plan to get the best out of what you he's got and understand the motivations and aspirations of your players - In this case have a good run around and enjoy it.

I'd now really got the coaching bug!

These days Universities encourage students to take coaching qualifications.  It was no different then. I did my Preliminary FA coaching badge on a week of the summer of '77 on the fields of Walsall.  I must say I found it fairly easy but still had to demonstrate how to coach. Then football was technically and tactically dominated by the philosophy of Charles Hughes "Goals are scored goals in the penalty box THEREFORE get the ball into the box and as Often as Quickly as you can." Good old long ball English football.  I did also "certificate chase" and  did level 1 Tennis. Which I cannot remember ever using apart from putting on my CV!

One of the great experiences of College was going away as a year group to the then National Sailing Centre in Cowes, Isle of White . A week sailing and socialising but not always in that order. I was lucky as we had a great instructor and only two of us in a boat, Whereas the others had three in a boat. So we had more chance to have a go. This was the first time learning by doing became a very obvious way of learning skills. - This was where my philosophy of encouraging people to try things out rather than being Told took shape .  We had a great instructor who let us do it and so we learnt surprisingly quickly and had great fun learning how far you can tip a wayfarer before it capsized. We worked out a number of simple rules - the flatter the boat in the water the faster it goes adn we only need one captain. Charlie Herriotts (now a head teacher) and I had a great time and I have relived the experience sailing on a few holidays since most notably in the Caribbean trying to teach /encourage my children to sail.

At that time in the 70's the Uni captain was the key person setting tactics and I do remember nearly out-foxing a more skilful older age group in six-a-side cricket by setting 3-1 offside field.  We were well ahead until I bowled the last over of "hit me" long hops.  (note to self be a coach not a player) However that led me to be appointed as cricket captain and led to net sessions, leading player improvement and trying to work out how to win games through good tactical application.  I still think tactical awareness is under provided for in Education programmes for team sports to this day. 

Three years of rich experience was finished off in the last two terms of teaching practice (TP) and my second mentors in teaching / coaching styles. Firstly to the now closed Boldmere School and the head of PE Ed Richards. His standards set with children were firm but fair. I learnt even the good kids had to be told off when they needed to be   Ed ran a gymnastics club - far away from the College educational gymnastics.  The gym club had a focus of a display at the school open day.  They mostly did dive rolls forward over boxes and platforms in sequence.  How different from making tree shapes! It enthused a group of children who were not going to play football or do athletics. I was fascinated in this group and wanted to analyse Their movement. So with my DJ strobe light and an open camera lens I took a series of photos to demonstrate and analyse the movement. Furthermore as DJ in night clubs at the time I suggested setting the display at open days to music so with War of the Worlds Chic and blasting out the display went ahead to open mouthed potential pupils from the local primary schools.

Ed was very much about self-discovery, supporting and encouraging the team to take calculated , supported risks in their performance which challenged the group to strive for higher and more complicated skills. 

My second TP was a very different environment and one I was maybe more comfortable in; a very team based PE department. Remember this was late 1970's and then a PE was not in the national curriculum or in fact a national curriculum did not exist Until 1988 ! Manor High, Wednesbury  in a down town part of the Black Country with Martin Flint and  Graham Angel - basketball and rugby players of a high level so guess what sports they did? They encouraged me to play in the local league basketball team containing some students and this gave me my first experience of a school- links club! As well as a coupe of seasons playing West Midlands Premier and division five in the same week. This was a great experience and at that time the sports hall would be open only in the evenings for school led activity and it was free!

This teaching practice also made me realise  why I was not a high performing field event  athlete. I'd never had the practice in school!   I'd be lined up with the other 29 members of my class and had two or three goes at the shot / discuss / javelin a lesson / year. Surprisingly I never got any better. Graham however was  very different. After a very strong organised safety briefing  he had   small groups of five or six students dotted around the field . Each group had at least ten attempts at each activity before rotating. Safety was paramount and no students anywhere near breaking the throwing line. Each student recorded their scores per event into a big heavy book. Each pupil then worked out AAA five star award they were eligible for (early use of maths in PE). If anyone cheated the other pupils were excellent at informing staff! Manor had excellent results at district level but also the vast majority of pupils got a certificate. This philosophy of "you only get better if you practice" has also been a guiding principle carried through coaching and all my coaching and tutoring. "Pupils don't get any better when you are talking" This was his mantra. . 

PE Teaching

So I got a job PE teacher at Perry Beeches Secondary School in Great Barr Birmingham -  the sad part I beat my friend Charlie to the job  It was a small secondary school, the nearest one to the Alexander Stadium and right next to the M6,  The school entered competition in the Aston School District which incorporated some of the most deprived areas of the country. Now Perry Beeches is a free school and has at least three annexes across the City. Then it had a school gymnasium and a grass sports field of one one football and hockey pitch situated next to a nature reserve and quarry, which was ideal for cross country. Now it has Sportshall and synthetic grass pitch and the nature reserve is closed to cross country for safety reasons.

To put into context the only sport in 1979. The only junior leagues outside of school were Sunday morning football. I ran twelve teams helped by non-PE teachers turning out to support Football, Badminton, Table Tennis, Cricket, cross country and athletics fixtures. This changed when the teacher action in 1984/5 defined teachers as having to work 1,152 hours a year and many teachers stopped supporting teams. When I was CEO at Basketball I reviewed the national teams and on the female side there was a four year age group without any representation which directly related to year in school groups who were the most affected by the teachers action.   

My first lesson was to a year 10 group - my head of department's guidance for the football lesson "give them a ball and they'll be happy -. Oh by the way two of them are good boxers" So lets start with high standards I thought! My second assignment was to take the under 16 football team in a cup final left over from the year before end at the Birmingham County FA Ground (where I have just become a Director). It was  Perry Beeches v Holte. I thought we would be fine as we have Craig Shakespeare  Who went on to  spells with Walsall and West Brom and is now coach at Leicester with  Nigel Pearson.  It was not to be - Craig did scored our one in a 9-1 defeat and a certain Mark Walters playing for Holte score 4 or 5! What a talent.

The School was at the time known to be a Volleyball School and Craig did play for England at Volleyball -. But I was having none of that . The indoor sport was to be basketball. So my head of department took the volleyball . He moved on after two terms and had taught me nothing apart from how not to conduct yourself as a teacher   My new head of PE was coming back into teaching after a gap and gave much needed discipline to the department including simple things like improving the speed of changing to increase contact time and a format for teaching.

Working on my principle of you only get better if you play and practice before I instigated before school practice for basketball, football and in the summer athletics and cricket. Those early morning sessions along with double lunchtime sessions of an outdoor and an indoor session proved invaluable in developing one-to-one coaching and tactical development team. We developed a strong reputation for quality of our PE and play. Furthermore I wanted to give an opportunity for every pupil to represent the school. So I brought in PE department polices - 1. When we hold to home cross-country event everyone in the first three years can take part. 2. That year in league games only boys in that year group play and 3. In cup games we would move up exceptional players one age group. These polices along with good teaching improved enjoyment of PE for the pupils and success externally. 

At that time we drove both curricular and extra-curricular provision. As I had enjoyed running and cross country I wanted to enthuse pupils in this area so I made ​​the cross-country an activity. So we made sure we did cross-country every month not just when  the fields were too wet.  I used the nature reserve to make it a little more interesting by for example we had a race to the fox holes and one to the badgers set etc. Furthermore I was concerned some of the lads were of a " larger size "and not likely to enjoy cross country as much as others. So when we came to a hill we would all stop and then  have a race to the top with a difference. When the fastest got to the top I would blow a whistle and wherever anyone was they would stop and turn round and get to the bottom as quickly as possible. This pushed the quick ones and the slower ones had a longer recovery. This meant the larger lads felt more engaged and valued. Many of them represented the school and were proud of doing so even if the goal was to finish. (It also went on school reports  that they had represented the school).  The school cross-country  team won both the Birmingham and West Midlands championships . I did meet one pupil a year after I had left and he did say he missed cross-country more than football or basketball! We were successful in winning a number of district cricket, football and basketball titles in an area which was exceptionally competitive at the time.

Dave Fisher (Simon Fisher's - GBWBA father's talent manager) was a mentor of mine. Dave was an England Basketball Director and an exceptional coach. When he heard we had entered the league competition he invited us down to Broadway school for a game. I set-up a basic zone defence and a very undeveloped man-to-man and he gave my coaching lesson - they absolutely destroyed us he did tell me afterward they were national champions the year before! 

So I needed a coaching course -. I went to the Blackpool Easter school, the only provision of coach education at the time.  It was a week-long mixture of coach education courses and much "socialising".  Dave Ransom was the tutor and went on to be CEO and coach of England  At last I learnt how to build and maintain on offence and defence,  This was followed by the oterh opportunity the Loughborough summer school and the club coach award (L2 equivalent) - a great week culminating in a match against a top local / national mixed team league - it was that game I decided I was to be a coach not a player.  Although I still have the badge!

I constructed the school style of play and put together a playbook but more importantly displayed the basic offence and defence on a notice board for all to see. Something I think about now that I have always tried to make things visual for those that like pictures to understand.  I further developed the approach that lessons were dedicated to skill development and the morning and lunchtime sessions were dedicated to team development. Also I allowed players to practice shooting at break times giving them free time to practice and got to the Head Teacher invest in an outdoor goal - not the last  time I will do that! This  playbook I used all through my basketball coaching adding to it as I developed teams and players. The same in football, we played 4-3-3 until a year 10 and then to 4-4-2. This was new at the time and confused many schools who were used to 4-3-3. I spent so much time on developing staff skill and it was a proud moment was when one of the smallest school kids won a penalty competition at Wolves.

Our athletics gradually improved over time, through the Graham Angle philosophy, and a group of boys were keen to stay after school to practice throwing and jumping. Particularly in the early years we used to athletics as a basis to develop basic skills. We had pupils arriving in the first year who we had to teach how to run, jump and throw. The one pupil who went on a basketball scholarship in the states, Raymond Davies, was 6-1 'when I came in year 7 and did not have to jump. So we taught him how to jump before he touched a basketball. He was Aston District Champion at high jump and long jump three years running.  This proved vital when he came up against players of the same height. I've lost touch with Ray but I think I have now is a doctor in the USA.   

From the investment in cross country athletics came easily to pupils, even though we only had a 300 meter grass track! I had one Athletics claim to fame. Although we had a range of district champions only one boy, Ian Cattermole, made it to the finals of the English Schools Athletics and that was in the Hammer.   Still to this day I do not know any technique related to Hammer throwing but I spent many an after school session with enthusiastic "larger boys" taking great pride in throwing the hammer. Practice made perfect,. Although I did aid the process by putting in a concrete circle in learning new building  skills! Maybe a bit extreme but it was needed.

I had many enjoyable experiences in my six years of teaching but some of the most enjoyable waere coaching district football teams. I took over a team in 1980 from Bryan Jones   when he left for his first stint at Aston Villa leading the youth academy. Bryan led the most successful Academy in the country before leaving after falling out with Paul Lambert. My co-coach of that team was Steve Burns who later joined Bryan at the Villa Academy and developed a whole host of high quality footballers. 

We had the one player in team from who went on to play professionally and for England from that district district team; Tony Daley . At 12 was the most outstanding prospect in the district - better than Walters.    Tony was at St Georges School which also produced Gordon Cowans and Dean and Simon Sturridge uncle's of Daniel at Liverpool. This was down to teachers Glyn Edwards and Colin Rogers who inspired so many boys in the most challenging part of Birmingham.  So a hot bed of talent. Craig, Tony and Darren Moore (Described in later blog) are some of the nicest people you will ever meet and completely against the stereo type of professional footballers [SK1]  . I posted this picture on Facebook and we found 10 of the team. 

However at year 9 we had a problem with Tony as he had played over 120 games and surprisingly that season he was starting to get knee problems.  Everybody wanted him - He played in three different age groups at school and at the weekend  So Steve and I spoke to his parents, school and Sunday teams to reduced the number of games in the next year to between 25 to 30 games. I still feel this allowed Tony to make a career of football. Still too many of our athletes not just in football fall by the way side due to injury through over play led by short term thinking from coaches, teachers or parents. Simple message; sport for life is not the next game and players need to be nurtured through adolescence as games at that age are not important but being able to play sport for life is crucial. 

I was sad to leave teaching in 1986 but the teachers action   had ripped apart and the school sport . Governing bodies at the time were very slow to pick up and organise age group competition leaving a big hole in talent development. Even now conflict between schools and clubs exits. NGBs competition needs to recognise the role school sprot plays and has played.  However schools associations also need to be clear about the role they can play in the changing education culture of the UK even through they have been around since the late 19 th or early 20 th century. 

My next blog will explore my time coaching in That inter-club environment. 

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 [SK1] describe coaching philosophies and trial systems etc.