[00:00:00,000] [Jamie:] Hello and welcome to CoachCast by England Football Learning, the coaching podcast that brings you insight from people across the game. Today we're chatting to Pete Sturgess, the FA's technical lead for 5-11s, to discover his journey so far, his insight for working with young players and to hear all about a new early years programme. Hi Pete, welcome back to CoachCast for your second appearance. It's great to have you back on the show. How are you?
[00:00:40,080] [Pete Sturgess:] Hiya Jamie. Yeah, I never get invited back to the same place twice, so this is a first. So thanks very much.
[00:00:47,040] [Louise:] It's very nice to have you back on. So what we'd really like to do is find out a bit more about your role and what you specialise in, so for anybody that doesn't know yet.
[00:00:58,560] [Pete Sturgess:] Okay. I have to start out by saying I do have the best job in the world. It contains lots and lots of variety, so on a daily, weekly, monthly basis I will be contributing to discussions and meetings that may ultimately shape the game and the development of our youngest players. So for me, that's incredibly important work and I obviously take it very, very seriously. I work across grassroots and the professional game, so in any one week I could be doing a CPD event for a county FA and then being a professional academy working with the coaches and supporting their development within the professional game. I obviously deliver on courses, so the Advanced Youth Award is obviously our flagship course for the boys' elite game, but I've also been involved in the UAFC tutor training and the development of that course. You mentioned the early years programme, that's been quite all-consuming over the last three years of my life and it's just beginning to come to fruition now. I also contribute to content on the FA's boot room and obviously examples like these podcasts and for my sins and this is how sad I am, I'll read quite a lot of research papers, so just to make sure that the advice that we're giving coaches and the advice that's shaping our courses is quite current and up to date, so I think that's pretty much it.
[00:02:52,600] [Jamie:] A lot of stuff there, Pete, and that's not sad at all, it's great just to be on trend and know what's what really and I think we'll put that experience to the test. I think you'll like this because as this is a coaching podcast, listeners could be on the way to training while they're listening to this, so we think it's good to give them some great advice straight away at the top of the show.
[00:03:11,640] [Louise:] Yes, and we're going to call this your arrival activity. What we're going to do is we're going to give you 30 seconds to give us some top coaching tips. Your time starts now.
[00:03:27,200] [Pete Sturgess:] If you are on your way to training, the greeting at the start of any session is crucial and can set the tone for the next however many hours it's going to be. The players must see and hear how happy you are to see them, so that is crucial right at the beginning of your session. Second one would be about being kind, patient and understanding and be willing to enter the world of the young child. Be a good communicator and show empathy and that can come across when you might set up a practice but you'll actually say to them that I think this might be difficult but I think you can do it, or what might success look like if we do this practice? My last one, and I know I'm going to go over time here, is that understand that teaching and learning is a complex thing. It takes time, but most importantly, it is their learning, so they must feel as though they are part of it, included and can contribute ideas, and we use the phrase they are active agents in the whole process of their development. So I know I went over time, but if coaches just bear those three things in mind, I think we'll be well on the way.
[00:04:49,280] [Louise:] Brilliant. Well, like you said, we did go over 30 seconds, but well worth it.
[00:04:53,860] [Jamie:] I think everyone will be happy to hear your insight, Pete, so we'll let that one slide, but we'll jump straight into the next section of the podcast, which is to kind of find out a little bit more about you as well as getting some further insight as well. I think we'll start with what was your first experience of football like at a young age?
[00:05:14,080] [Pete Sturgess:] My own experiences were, well, I used to live on a council estate where just over the road there was a huge green open space, so it was like a magnet for not just myself, but all the other kids in the street and all the kids on the estate, so there were regular informal pickup games with any number of players, and I think that's missing from today's society, partly because the open spaces are disappearing, but also that willingness to just go outside, meet some friends, and just play. So I think they were golden times for me, and I know everybody looks back at their early years and it's always great, but I know for me it was a very special time.
[00:06:08,360] [Jamie:] Would you say that you had a good experience growing up then?
[00:06:11,240] [Pete Sturgess:] Yeah, I always look back on my childhood as, I know I often use the phrase magical, but it just was. It always seemed to be outdoors, it always seemed to be doing lots of different things, so in the summer we would play tennis in the street, and because there weren't many cars, this is me confessing how old I am, we would be able to play a few points before a car came down and then we'd just wait at the side of the road and then go back on the road to play again. So we played lots of cricket, basketball, I was particularly fond of badminton, and we were lucky that we went to a school that really promoted those kind of things. So I was lucky enough to represent my school and my town at tennis, basketball, football, and I think that breadth of experiences, it has to add something to your own development.
[00:07:17,560] [Louise:] And I guess that kind of enjoyment and, like you say, the variety of things that you played really probably adds to your values now, wanting to give that to other kids.
[00:07:29,040] [Pete Sturgess:] I think I certainly see the value in having a more diversified approach right at the beginning of your journey, so that if we lock children into football right from the get-go and they have very few experiences away from football, I tend to see their development as being more one-dimensional instead of three-dimensional. And at such a young age, we're not quite sure what the child is going to go on to achieve, so having lots of experiences really early on might just open up other avenues for the child and other areas that they might enjoy just as much as they do football.
[00:08:12,480] [Louise:] Yeah. So how long have you been involved with football? I know you started quite young playing, but...
[00:08:20,640] [Pete Sturgess:] Yeah, I think I joined my first team at around 11 or 12, and then from that point on, I was always playing for a team. And then obviously I finished playing at around 35 and then immediately became the player-coach of the team that I'd stopped playing for in non-league football. And then my coaching journey just grew from there.
[00:08:47,939] [Louise:] And what was it that made you want to get involved in coaching?
[00:08:51,400] [Pete Sturgess:] You know, I left school not really knowing what I wanted to do, but I always felt as though something to do with teaching and learning was always in the background, but I always felt that I wasn't clever enough to be a teacher. But I think as soon as I discovered football, I wanted football to be presented to both me and to all the players and children I've coached in a way that excited them and met their needs and really fulfilled their love of the game, but also would help them feel as though they were in an environment that was designed to help them get better. So it sounds a bit tweeble, you know, it was a huge driving force. Certainly in my later coaching years, it's become the dominant force, but there was always this niggling thing in the back of my mind that this is what I would like to achieve or like to start doing.
[00:09:57,920] [Jamie:] What is it that you enjoy about coaching, Pete? You know, when I do CPD events, I often talk about as a coach, you have to enjoy the company of young people, regardless whether it's in a football setting. And I think that's the biggest thing for me. When I see the kids coming or when I see kids playing, I just think it brings out the best in me, but I also want their interactions with me to bring out the best in them. And I think when that happens, there's so much satisfaction that you can get from being around young people, from talking to them, from listening to their ideas. I just think it's just a great place to be.
[00:10:46,400] [Louise:] And what do you judges like, it's probably quite a wide angle question here, but what do you judges like success when coaching young players?
[00:10:56,200] [Pete Sturgess:] In the early days, I think success was the kids coming back because when you're learning your trade, you haven't got all of the experiences to reflect on for you to think, right, this is going well or, you know, I might need to change this or I need to add this. So in the very early stages, just the enjoyment of the children during the session and the fact that they came back the next week and were really keen to do it again. I think that that was a huge indicator and a huge sign for me to say, Pete, you've got to get this right. And I didn't always get it right. In fact, I've had some real car crashes, but you learn from them.
[00:11:45,880] [Jamie:] So that's the important thing, isn't it? Like learning from those, you have to have mistakes to learn from them in any walk of life. But how was that when you first started coaching? Like what was that first experience like? Did you have many mistakes that you've learned from and adapted as you've gone on in your career?
[00:12:03,359] [Pete Sturgess:] Yeah, I think the one thing that really helped me was the fact that I would plan meticulously. In fact, for an hour session, I probably had three months work because I know when you're starting out on your coaching journey, the one thing that you don't want to do is run out of ideas. And so I was almost obsessed with making sure that I had more than my hours session. But as I got more experienced, I realized that if something's going well, don't change it just because it's on your plan and you've planned for a 15 minute activity. If it's going well, the children are engaged with it, they're motivated by it, and there's some learning going on, then just keep it going. And then eventually it'll reach a natural resting point. And that's when the kids can have a drink and we can reset the whole activity. But I think because you might be inexperienced or a bit nervous, if you rigidly stick to your plan, you're going to miss those opportunities where you've pitched it just right and you've got the kids exactly where you want them. So if you're ever in that, it's almost like a state of flow. Please, please, please don't stop it and move on just because after 20 minutes you plan for something else to happen.
[00:13:32,320] [Jamie:] Do you have any top tips then Pete for like keeping players engaged? And I know that's going to vary in coaches context, of course, depending on you need to know what the players actually want and need. But in general, is there any like rules that the coaches could abide by?
[00:13:54,360] [Pete Sturgess:] I think that there's a real desire from coaches to look for the next fantastic coaching session. And I think in doing that, you're missing the gift that we've been given because most children come because they love the game of football. They don't love Barcelona's favourite Rondo or they don't miss Jose Mourinho's favourite counter-attacking session. They love the game of football. And I think that has become a stronger and stronger force within my own thinking and coaching in that I want to serve the game up for the children and give them the game back instead of taking them away to wild and wonderful sessions, which I have done over many decades. But there is like this realisation that the kids also want to play the game and they want to play it within our coaching sessions as well as in the games that we organise and the fixtures that we present to them at the weekends. So I think please don't, for coaches, please don't be afraid to set up some small number practices, have a tournament, get the kids motivated in that way. So I think that's our way of giving them the game back.
[00:15:18,840] [Jamie:] Following up from that then, you're talking about obviously player engagement being a big thing in coaching. What other key attributes and skills do you think makes a good coach and also a transformational coach?
[00:15:34,000] [Pete Sturgess:] I mean, right at the beginning in the arrival activity, I mentioned being kind, patient, how important that greeting is, and also being open-minded yourself. So I think as a coach, you've got to be open to learning because I think as soon as you shut that down, subliminally the message is going out to the kids that this is a bit of a drudge. We're going through the motions, we're going through the paces. I want to be as engaged with what's going on and as motivated by what's going on as the children. So I think it's really important that we maintain that open-mindedness so that we can transfer that to the kids because if the players see that I'm excited about learning something new, or they've come up with something that I hadn't really thought of, I absolutely let them know. It's just general conversations with the players and it might be, we've set this practice up and I thought this might happen, but you guys, you've taken it to the next level because I didn't think you would think about doing that and you did something that I hadn't even thought of. This is great because it shows the players that you're excited by the things that they bring to the session and I think that's when the environment is quite special and the kids know then that you're willing to accept their ideas, their creativity and I think then you're onto something really quite special.
[00:17:15,800] [Louise:] Just wondering Pete, where did you get all these ideas from initially? Was there anybody that was quite influential to you or inspired any of these thoughts?
[00:17:25,520] [Pete Sturgess:] Yeah, there's definitely one. It's a gentleman called Horst Vine who, he came up with a programme of game-based activities that really resonated with me and it might have been that it resonated with me because I was in a particular stage of my own development and I really, I mean, the FA now has got this target for producing more skillful players. Probably 20 years ago or 25 years ago, I was thinking along the same lines and Horst Vine and his approach was a games-based approach for doing just that. It included lots of relevant decision making that could be applied in the game of any numbers but it also recognised that children were young, they needed the numbers to be reduced, they needed the decisions to be reduced and those decisions would grow over time as more players were added, as the distances got bigger and as the objectives got more complex but it was, in discovering Horst Vine's work, it really set me off on a different path and I think that's been a huge influence and I have to thank the gentleman, he's passed away now but his legacy is obviously still a great one.
[00:18:53,520] [Louise:] Is there any good books or anything of his?
[00:18:56,920] [Pete Sturgess:] Yeah, Horst Vine has got, he's published his programmes and if coaches wanted to look at lots of ideas that are progressive but also quite innovative, I think it would be a great starting point.
[00:19:16,120] [Jamie:] Talking about books, Pete, you've got one yourself based on Futsal, a few years ago I believe now and was it 2017 I think that was. Do you want to tell us a little bit about how you got involved in Futsal and also as a bit of a follow-up question to that, it is a great game in its own right, of course it is, but do you think that Futsal is a valuable youth development tool?
[00:19:39,000] [Pete Sturgess:] Well if I answer that one first, because absolutely it's integral to both my work but also the development of the kind of skilful, instinctive, creative footballers that we want to create. Futsal has a huge part to play, particularly during those formative years of development so I think we should be really trying to maximise the development that Futsal can bring to skilful players, but also try to develop it as a game in its own right. So I think the two can co-exist. I first got involved in Futsal because I had the, I had the franchise for football de Salão, the Brazilian soccer methodology when I, when I was a sole trader as with my own soccer coaching business and the football de Salão was not the same as Futsal, but it introduced me to Futsal. And I think things just went from there. I, I was hooked on the game. I was lucky enough to be as the regional coach for Yorkshire, the team that won the national competition then entered European competitions, but they needed a full-time member of staff to go with them and because I was the regional coach for Yorkshire and Doncaster Deaf College won the national tournament, I was asked to go with them to the national, to the international competitions. We had, the team were deaf players, but they'd actually won the mainstream tournament and it was pretty much down to a gentleman called John Smith who was a lecturer at Doncaster Deaf College. He signed and he was the link between the players on the game of Futsal and he was absolutely fantastic. And when I worked alongside John, I might've been the full-time member of staff, but it was John who had the greatest influence over the players. But we, we worked together for two years and it was a really rich period of learning for me, learning to sign, learning about the game of Futsal at international level, so it was such a really great period of development for me and it was just purely because I was the regional coach for Yorkshire that I was asked to do that role, but then from there I went on to become the head coach for the England senior men's and I had an eight year or almost eight years with them competing in UEFA and FIFA competitions and again, the learning just goes through the roof because we were competing against nations who knew the game inside out. They, their players grew up with court based games and so their, their ability to, their tactical ability was so much greater than ours because literally on an England camp, I would have players that would play non-league football on the Saturday and then come to a coaching session with me on the Sunday for international Futsal. So that was what we were having to deal with, but that was, they were the best players that we could draw on at the time. I think towards the latter stages of my tenure with the England team, we had players who only played Futsal and boy did it make a difference. So yeah, that's a, well, quite a long summary of my, you know, involvement in Futsal, so apologies for that.
[00:23:33,845] [Jamie:] I know, not at all. We do have an episode to anyone that's listening based on Futsal from our first series, I believe Ian Parks was on and gave us a great insight into that. But Pete, while we've got Ian that went, went into that in depth a little bit about it in that episode, what do you think that Futsal brings to players? What, what can it help them with creativity, for instance?
[00:23:57,005] [Pete Sturgess:] I think the game is, the game is on a small court. It's, it's 40 by 20. So your movements, your decisions, your technical actions, they're all compromised because you have less time and less space to act. And I think if you're brought up like that, then when the pressure comes on a pitch, that's, you know, a hundred by 70, then you can deal with pressure. And I think that's probably one of the most influential things that the game can, can bring to young player development. Also the levels of repetition of all of those things, particularly your touches on the ball and your, the timing of your movements can become so much more refined because you're repeating them over and over and over again. So you can almost hone when's the right time to go, when's the right time to check off into space, when's the right time to pass the ball to a teammate. And I think all of those things contribute to you becoming a great Futsal player. But if you want to apply that in football, I think that also helps greatly as well. So can we jump forward to your role at the moment, but focus on what your main aims are for the role now? Yeah. I mean, over the last 17 years that I've been at the FA, that there has never been a clearer direction of travel and the latest strategy that looks at developing more skillful players is going to make us on a global scale dangerous because everybody is pushing towards the same goal and that is to produce the kind of players that could represent us at the highest level in the best possible way. And that might sound a bit grand, but we've got people in facilities who are looking at the decisions that they make with, is this decision going to help us make, help us develop more skillful players? We've got people developing courses who are thinking, does this course and the content push us towards developing more skillful players? We've got tutors who are delivering those courses thinking we have to get these key messages across because we want to develop more skillful players. If I'm doing a CPD event, the topic is developing more skillful players. So I think we've never been more aligned in our thinking and our decision making right throughout the department because we've got this central aim and it's a really exciting one to produce more skillful players. And I think it's such an exciting period. And I do think it's going to make us really dangerous. We are setting up something for the future that is going to bear such great fruit and I'm really excited about that.
[00:27:12,965] [Louise:] And how would you say that that all relates to grassroots coaches at the moment? So how are they kind of getting involved in that as well? Or how can they?
[00:27:22,325] [Pete Sturgess:] I think this is the most exciting bit that everybody, every coach, every player, every parent in grassroots. If we sell them the messages and communicate really clear and consistent messages, they can realize how they can actually play their part in us as a nation producing more skillful players. It does need a bit of a leap of faith because we're asking them to consider encouraging and reinforcing certain things that might be slightly different from what's happened in the past. But if we get buying, I think, I think the grassroots community and the grassroots game can play a significantly important part in us achieving that goal.
[00:28:10,525] [Jamie:] So what can grassroots coaches do then? And what kind of key considerations do they need to have when they're working with primary age kids and helping them to become skillful?
[00:28:19,725] [Pete Sturgess:] We have to make sure that the formats that they play, the messages that are getting onto the pitch during all of the games that they play, and the messages that are going onto the training pitch when they train are all connected to developing skill. So we want, you won't develop skillful players unless their movement is skillful, their ability on the ball is skillful, and their decisions are skillful. So if we're sending out very bland messages because we're worried about losing the game at the weekend, or we're worried about, you know, a defeat, we'll be telling the children things that are contra indicative to skill, we'll be telling them to get rid of the ball, to put the ball back on the pitch, and then to get rid of the ball, to boot it away, to just, you know, send it as far away from our goal as possible. We won't be encouraging players to stay on the ball for a little bit longer to see whether they can, you know, create some problems for their opponents. And also we want our players to grow up being really comfortable with the ball at their feet. That can't happen if we don't encourage it, the parents don't encourage it, or if the key message is just get rid of it. I think that is one of the biggest things that we can begin to address, but the only way we can address it is if we put the importance of that result just to one side, whilst we focus on making sure that the players enjoy the game, are exciting and creative when they're playing it, and we're all encouraging them to be as skillful as they can be. For me, it is possible, but sometimes us as coaches, we need to put that ego aside and just say, this is about the children, their development and their enjoyment of the game, but we can do it.
[00:30:17,885] [Jamie:] If there is one, what would you say the main priority is when coaching this age group?
[00:30:22,885] [Pete Sturgess:] I think we have to help them to reach their full potential through a program of development that is exciting. It's about teaching and learning. It's about developing a love of the game, and I think if we can start working along those lines, the environment will be right because it's allowing each child to reach their full potential and become as skillful as they can. The one thing that the research tells us is that when children feel a sense of competence, that they can actually do things and they're improving and getting better, their levels of motivation goes through the roof, their levels of self-esteem goes through the roof, and they enjoy coming and continuing that process even more.
[00:31:17,645] [Louise:] While we're talking about this, it seems like a good time to find out more about the early years pilot program that you've been working on. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
[00:31:26,645] [Pete Sturgess:] Yeah. How long have you got? Because you might've opened up a Pandora's box here. We contacted the county FAs to find out how many children are registered with them in what they call development teams or as a development player, and they're players who are in the system, but they might be four, five, or six years of age, being prepared, ready to be that grassroots clubs under sevens at some point. When we contacted one county FA, there was almost a thousand children in this category, and we've got, is it 44 county FAs or 43? So the numbers are phenomenal, but it was completely unregulated. There was obviously some good practice, but we wasn't sure whether there were, if there were elements of poor practice, whether there were elements of poor practice, whether we could actually, you know, support the development of our very, very youngest players so that they had a much better experience. So we put together an early years program full of activities that we, where we just finished the pilot and the pilots been really successful. We've learned a lot. We need to make some subtle changes, but the one, the biggest thing that we learned, the one, the biggest thing that came out of it was that the kids loved it. And that was, that was the overall aim. We wanted the children to fall in love with being physically active, being with other children and having fun and football was part of it. But we also used, um, tug of war ropes, which is an absolute winner with the kids. We use balls of different sizes, we use hoops, we use, um, the mini goals that the bazooka goals, um, for the, for the football activities that we played. So the children were literally blasted with lots of different experiences for movement, for thinking. So we worked on their cognitive development. We worked on their social development. We included lots of things regarding object play so that their fine motor skills were developed as well. And then the, the football offer was 2v2. So they could only play 2v2 during the pilot. And it's hoped that the program will embrace 2v2 as the main football offer because we found that children enjoyed the games more. They got more touches, they scored more goals, they were more active. We asked the coaches to have a ball ready that if the ball went out of play in the 2v2 games, instead of having four children running after the ball and the game literally stopping, the coach was already rolling the next ball along and then the coach would fetch that ball that had gone off. So the kids were active in a game of football for so much longer. And of course the motivation levels and the enjoyment levels just went through the roof. So we're really excited about what this, what this pilot has told us. And we're looking to implement it across the whole game at the beginning of next season, not, not this season.
[00:34:55,284] [Louise:] That sounds like it's really feeding into the, the idea and the ethos that you were talking about earlier.
[00:35:00,605] [Pete Sturgess:] For me, I think that's the starting point of being a more skillful player. Because what we're asking the children to do really challenges their thinking, their movement, their decision-making, but it's all done in such a really enjoyable and creative way that the children just think that they are coming to play and play is the biggest feature of the program.
[00:35:27,485] [Jamie:] It sounds fascinating, Pete. Where do you see this going? What's your vision for the program then?
[00:35:34,205] [Pete Sturgess:] Ooh, world domination, I think, Jamie. I think, I think, I think if the program can be adopted within that development teams, that development player section of, of grassroots, I think it's going to give the players such a skills boost and a boost of enjoyment and a boost of that love of the game of football. But for those who eventually choose not, who don't choose football, what we've given them is a really great physical activity start, so if they go and imply that in rugby or in swimming or in athletics later on in life, I would like to think it's because we made physical activity fun right at the get-go. So I think long-term ripples for this program could go out in all directions. But I think the starting point was to present being physically active with friends in just the best possible way. And if that leads to the children then choosing football, that's great for football, but if they don't, we've given them the best possible start anyway.
[00:36:53,925] [Louise:] What are the things that people can be doing to get involved with that project?
[00:36:57,685] [Pete Sturgess:] The pilot program included 24 grassroots clubs from around the country, both in the North and the South, well, North, South and Midlands. I think as a result of that, what we are going to put together is a training module so that if people want to use the program, if they attend the training module, it will give them a clear idea about what the philosophy is about. It will give them access to lots of activity cards, resources, and things that they can use and ideas that they can use for the program. And it will also allow us to keep the integrity of the program together. But ultimately, we want people to come on the training course, begin to represent the program, and then make it their own, but they make it their own in line with the overall philosophy and the aim of the program. So, we are having meetings about what that training module will look like, and as soon as we're in a position to begin to communicate this out to the wider game, then that will obviously happen. But we've also got providers out there, private providers, who also might want to get involved in this. They've got their own programs, their own franchises, and we know there's a lot of good work going on. And I think between us, we can arrive at something where everybody who's delivering in early years is actually working towards the same agenda, and that's about long-term participation, enjoyment, embracing the power of play and the importance of play in its broadest sense when children choose to become physically active. And I think our program is a really good go at harnessing that.
[00:39:00,805] [Jamie:] And another part of our vision is for coaches to provide inspirational opportunities to players. Can you talk a little bit about what that is and how coaches can do that?
[00:39:11,845] [Pete Sturgess:] Yeah, I think the phrase inspirational opportunities is going to mean lots of different things to different people. I can give an example because I'm more aware of it happening within the Boys Academy program. Inspirational opportunities in the Boys Academy program means that the games program that was very bland about five, six years ago, where two teams would turn up, they'd play a game and it was nearly, well, it was always the same format, and then everybody would go home. In the Boys Academy now, players can turn up and there might be three or four of the teams who turn up at the same venue. They'll play each other. They'll play different formats. There will be player led games where the coaches will hand over the fixtures, the sorting out of teams to the players. So I think for me, those are inspirational opportunities. And it's because, well, I'm hoping it's because the coaches and the clubs have been influenced by coming on the Advanced Youth Award where we've really sent out a strong message that volume and variety is needed, but we must know that no, and we're asking the coaches to reflect on the returns that they get from each of those different opportunities, because the two things go hand in hand. Just having variety is great, but it's not enough. It's not as good as having variety and then reflecting on the returns and the development you're getting from all of those different opportunities. So for me, if you wanted an example of an inspirational change in the opportunities we provide for our players, the Boys Academy program has really grasped that and is having a right go at it. And that's really exciting.
[00:41:12,685] [Jamie:] Yeah, thanks for that example, Pete. I mean, it certainly sounds a lot more fun now.
[00:41:18,605] [Pete Sturgess:] Well, I mean, when we sat down during lockdown as part of this initiative to develop more skillful players, the first thing we decided on is that we must keep a love of the game and that love of the game can only come through you being motivated to engage with it, to have fun through it, but also to recognize that when things are quite difficult, they can still be enjoyable because there's such a sense of achievement when you eventually, you know, reach that target or you meet that goal.
[00:41:59,405] [Jamie:] Thank you for that, Pete. Just to wrap this section up then, Pete, I know there's been plenty of top tips and advice that our listeners can take away, but do you have any final advice to someone who maybe is an aspiring coach?
[00:42:13,165] [Pete Sturgess:] Yeah, probably the best piece of advice is that the answers don't always lie in football, so I think a lot of my success, for want of a better word, is because I've taken lots of time to understand how children develop and that's in its broadest sense, so what they go through during those early years, it's just like a fantastic journey and the more I know about it, the more aspiring coaches know about it, the journey that those young children go on purely because they've been born and, you know, they enter this world, I think the more they know about that, the better equipped that they will be to serve up football in the future. most appropriate way. So please don't, I mean, your understanding of football is important, but please balance that off with making sure that you understand more about the developments that's going on within every young child that stands in front of you.
[00:43:29,672] [Louise:] Brilliant. Okay. So in this part of the show, we're focusing on community questions. So one that I thought might be quite interesting to look at was this one. We're entering an under seven and under eights league for the first time. We need to split the group into four teams and have been advised to do this by ability. Some of the players who've really struggled to keep up with the rest. Although the rest of the team are really trying, the frustration is starting to rub off and reduce the enjoyment of the game. What should we do? Do you have any insight for that? It's probably quite a tricky, but maybe quite a common one.
[00:44:05,143] [Pete Sturgess:] My biggest piece of advice is this is probably one of the most difficult things to actually equal out because you could present a case for doing it by ability and you could provide lots of reasons why we have split it through ability. You could also make an equal case to say, at the moment, some players are just slightly ahead of the others, but that doesn't mean that that will always be the case. And over time, things can change quite quickly. So we've seen children, you know, go from zero to hero quite quickly. So you could make an equal argument to say, look, if you go mixed ability, eventually everything will equal out. So it's a really tough ask. What I would ask coaches to consider is that if you've, let's just look at it from a player's point of view. If you've created an environment that is fun, enjoyable, inclusive, and treated everybody the same, suddenly, quite arbitrarily, because we're entering the league, all of that has to go out the window and we have to make these really difficult choices. So for me, we have to give the children some experience of this before we get to that point. And here's one way you might do it. If they're under sevens, I think that's what you said, then certainly at the grassroots club that I was involved in, the under sevens trained on the same night as the under eights. And they never made any kind of contact with each other. We had separate parts of the AstroTurf. But we've actually got the opportunity to say, look, we're going to start mixing the two teams together. And then the children get introduced and get used to in some kind of simple way that teams are made up of different players. So that when you have to make that choice, when you're entering the tournament or you're entering the league, at least the players have had some experience of saying, you're in this team and not that team. The thing that makes it more complex is that parents will all be saying, I know why he's in that team. He's one of the better players. And I know why he's in that team because he's not. So this is such a complex thing to try to give a simple answer to. But what I would ask the coaches to consider is if you're creating such a great environment, make sure that your players are used to being in different teams, playing with different players. And if it's possible, on a training night, mix your sevens and eights together and try to equal out the teams according to the players needs so that the players get used to being in different teams, constituting different players. That would be the best advice I could give because it's such a difficult thing to actually to do and to make sure that everybody's happy. I would be surprised if anybody commented on the community and said, we've been able to do it and everybody's happy. It's so difficult.
[00:47:40,312] [Louise:] Do you think there's any advice you'd give for how to manage the disappointment between players or where they're getting frustrated, like how to get them to all work together?
[00:47:51,752] [Pete Sturgess:] I just think it's really difficult because you can give the players all the kind of platitudes, motivational speeches, all the encouragement you like. But if deep down they realize that there's an injustice here, whether that's right or wrong, it's actually really difficult to get over it. It would be wrong for me to be on here and say, yeah, it's dead easy. Just do this. It's not. So I'm trying to send out that I absolutely recognize how difficult this is. It's a point that any listeners now could go on the community and maybe share their ideas as well to help out with that. And maybe we can all work together and find some sort of solution. But as you say, it is obviously quite a difficult challenge to face.
[00:48:42,667] [Jamie:] Well, as our regular listeners know, it is going to come up to the end of the episode now. And that means it is time for our Swift session. Now, you've done one of these before, Pete, but we'll let Louise run through the rules for you. So our Swift session, if you remember, is another 30 seconds challenge where we ask you to come up with a session idea and explain it to us in 30 seconds.
[00:49:07,832] [Pete Sturgess:] Yeah, this 30 second challenge is a real challenge for me. But I just wanted to explain the thinking behind this session, because particularly when working with young players, we often overload one team, normally the attacking team, so that they can have success. And that's absolutely right. But the real game that we're pushing them towards, particularly around the goal areas, the attacking team is usually underloaded or outnumbered. And so if your players can cope with it, I think it's nice to throw in these kind of challenges. And I think this game is about one of those challenges.
[00:49:55,621] [Louise:] Okay. All right. Well, we'll set up a timer ready for you to go. And we'll give you 30 seconds to explain it. Okay. Your time starts now.
[00:50:08,632] [Pete Sturgess:] This game is 4v4 plus goalkeepers. But instead of it being a normal game, there is always one extra player playing for the team that does not have the ball. That means it's 5v4 all of the time. The pressing player, the one that's added to the defending team, has to work really hard to put pressure on the opponents, as do all of his or her teammates. If the ball turns over, go on, I can stop there. I can stop there.
[00:50:40,739] [Louise} We'll let you finish it off without the pressure of the time because it sounds like a good one.
[00:50:45,998] [Pete Sturgess:] If the ball changes hands, then the pressing player now plays for the team out of possession again. This means there is constant pressure on the team in possession of the ball as they try to keep possession and score.
[00:50:59,778] [Louise:] Brilliant.
[00:51:00,472] [Pete Sturgess:] 35 seconds. Brilliant.
[00:51:02,763] [Jamie] Thank you very much for that, Pete. It's been great to have you on again. And hopefully you'll make another return visit to CoachCast. How's it been for you this time around? It's been brilliant. I just hope people don't get fed up of my voice and from hearing the same things. But I think what it does give us all is a platform to just begin to reinforce and communicate some really important messages because the experiences our young children get right at the start of their journey, wherever that may lead, is so important. And so I can't apologise for that. Thank you very much. Thank you both.
[00:51:42,231] [Louise:] So how did you find that one, Jamie?
[00:51:45,032] [Jamie:] Yeah, another good episode. And it was nice to have Pete back on. I think, for me, a key message that stuck out from this one was almost like judging success. That can be different things for different people. But he'd mentioned that success to him in one way is, you know, you know you're doing something right if kids are coming back. So especially if you're new to coaching and you're a little bit worried or a little bit nervous, whatever, if your kids are coming back to your sessions, you're doing something right. You've got that enjoyment there. You've got that connection there. How about yourself?
[00:52:17,473] [Louise:] Yeah, I agree with that one. And I think one of the things that I found quite interesting was talking about the variety of things that you could introduce to children at a young age to kind of help to develop their physical literacy, but just their enjoyment. So the more variety that there is, the better for kids at an earlier age.
[00:52:36,546] [Jamie:] Yeah, another good one. It's been a good show. Right. Well, that is all we have time for today. But don't forget to check out the episode description for all of the links to our platforms. There you will be able to click through to the England Football Community. This is where you can post your coaching questions for us to discuss on the podcast or just simply to connect with loads of wonderful coaches.