[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 Vinny Halsall, an FA Regional Physical Education Officer for the South West, to discover his journey so far, his advice for teachers and his top tips for working with teenagers. Hello Vinny, welcome back to CoachCast, it's your second time on, how are you?
[00:00:39,519] [Vinny Halsall:] Yes I'm great thanks Jamie, it's great to be back and this time running solo, I think last time I was with Suey Smith, so I'm really looking forward to sharing a few ideas and a little bit of experience.
[00:00:51,840] [Louise:] Yeah it was really good to have you on last time, so it's great to have you back again. So can we make a start by seeing if you can paint a picture for the listeners about what your role entails?
[00:01:04,880] [Vinny Halsall:] Yeah sure Louise, so as Jamie said, as the FA Regional Physical Education Officer for the South West, first and foremost it's a big region, so it actually covers seven counties from Barks and Bucks all the way down to Cornwall, and in doing that we're very much now offering in the last 18 months a blended approach to teacher and coach development with a combination of face-to-face CPD, which is great to be back out there, we have been for the last academic year if you like if we're talking in school terminology, but also that online offer to support teachers and coaches within their context.
[00:01:44,800] [Jamie:] Brilliant, well before we dive any deeper into your story Vinnie, as this is a coaching podcast, listeners could be on the way to training whilst tuning into this, so we think it's a good idea to give them some great advice straight away.
[00:01:57,960] [Louise:] Yep, so we call this your arrival activity, help you warm up, get into it. So what we're going to ask you to do is give us some top coaching tips, but we want you to do it in 30 seconds, is that okay?
[00:02:13,079] [Vinny Halsall:] Absolutely.
[00:02:14,080] [Louise:] So we've got a little bit of tension building timer music for you, so we'll set that up, and if you're ready, 30 seconds starts now.
[00:02:25,240] [Vinny Halsall:] Well first of all I'm going to link to my background in terms of PE, so give the children a chance to play and explore, more often than not grassroots coaches will be with the children for just an hour a week, so high levels of activity time, your go-to program could be in terms of using games to engage. When the children get there, no matter whether they're arriving in twos or threes or as a whole group, let's have a really engaging arrival activity to get them physical, active on the move and having fun.
[00:02:57,720] [Louise:] Perfectly timed.
[00:02:58,799] [Jamie:] Really perfectly timed.
[00:02:59,799] [Louise:] And topical, we talked about arrival activities, so yeah, good.
[00:03:04,359] [Jamie:] Brilliant, well let's dive in then Vinny, and we'll start off with what was your first experience of football like?
[00:03:11,280] [Vinny Halsall:] It was definitely an informal one in terms of my upbringing in a place called Bootle in Liverpool, and it was simply with friends and members of my family playing out on what we used to call the square, we're going out, Mum, we're going out to play on the square, and actually it wasn't a square, it was a triangle, which is a good one in itself, but it was actually playing essentially out on the street, playing street footy, kicking around with friends, but there was always a game going on, there was always some sort of game that was highly competitive in mixed age groups, so my older brother Michael, who actually had a career, his whole career was as a professional footballer, a bit better than me as a player, four years older than me, and we used to play in the same game, but then there were boys who were two, three, four years older than him. There were some girls playing now and again, even what, 30 odd years ago, but that's my first memory in Bootle, out on the street, kicking around with friends, playing games.
[00:04:19,320] [Jamie:] We ask this quite a lot on the podcast, but it's quite an interesting one to get insights of each individual that come on, but how important was that informal play then, and that sort of enjoyment at an early age for you?
[00:04:32,720] [Vinny Halsall:] Just doing something that you love, I think that's the key thing, it's to really engender that love of physical activity, that love of playing sport, and specifically that love of playing footy, and that's simply all it was, we just loved being outdoors, loved being with our mates, loved stopping goals, loved scoring goals.
[00:04:54,120] [Jamie:] Where did sort of more competitive football potentially come in then, the more formal side of the game for you?
[00:05:02,640] [Vinny Halsall:] Two avenues really, so first of all Merton Villa, so that was a grassroot football club that my dad set up in a local pub, and I actually remember, again if we think about the format of the game that we have these days, from our 5 v 5 to 7 v 7 to 9 v 9, 11 v 11, in my days as a youngster it was straight into 11 v 11 footy, on full size pitches, with size five footballs, and I was actually seven years of age playing in our under 11 squad, again getting part of games, but I was there because my older brother was very much part of that 11-a-side squad, so of course I went along with him, and I got the occasional game which was fabulous, and then naturally as I moved up to 8, 9, 10, 11 years of age, I got my game in its own right, but yet it was certainly through my dad and a group of friends putting together that grassroots programme, and also in my primary school I had a fabulous teacher called John O'Rourke, who's no longer with us, and John was just devoted to giving us the opportunity to play. I remember particularly playing football and playing cricket as part of school teams, and they were my formative years in those primary school age groups, if you like, from 5 to 11 years of age.
[00:06:17,760] [Louise:] Moving on from your kind of playing, how long have you actually been involved with the game workwise?
[00:06:24,400] [Vinny Halsall:] I actually started coaching when I was in my first year at university, and I hadn't really done any sort of leadership stuff, I don't think school leadership programmes as such existed for teenagers in those days, the DAV wouldn't have existed, so it was very much me going away to study, and my first area of study was a more general sports studies and coaching, and that's when I did my first coaching qual, which in those days was the FA level 2 qualification, so there was no playmaker, there was no level 1 or introduction to coaching football, you were straight in at level 2, which was quite a technical and tactical programme of learning, so I remember doing that up in an area called Bullocksteads in the North East, and it was February, absolutely freezing cold, absolutely freezing, I remember the pitches being icy in fact, but yeah that was my first learning programme and from then I very quickly moved on to doing some coaching work in America with a company over there, which I did for three summers, and that manoeuvred me bit by bit towards becoming a qualified physical education teacher.
[00:07:42,600] [Louise:] And what was it that made you decide to go into the coaching side of things?
[00:07:47,200] [Vinny Halsall:] I wanted to play professional football, I had a couple of years, two and a half seasons with Liverpool as assigned on associate schoolboy, but yeah really was never good enough to move through those ranks, but just wanted to stay involved in physical activity, in football, and I manoeuvred into becoming a qualified PE teacher, linked to my coaching football, just purely for the love of doing physical stuff, and also my raison d'etre I would say is about being healthy and active too.
[00:08:22,039] [Jamie:] What is it then, even from a young age when you ended up getting your first start and getting into coaching, what was it that you actually enjoy about it?
[00:08:29,400] [Vinny Halsall:] Again the involvement in the game, but also that opportunity to help others, so I think that's a natural part of my personality, the way I was brought up, to care about others, to help others. I'm a family with mum and dad of four other siblings, so there were seven of us all together, so there had to be that element of looking out for each other and looking after each other. And also that little bit, if I was to link it to even self-determination theory, that autonomy, but that also competence, I was quite good at it, and by being quite good at it and by people praising what I was doing, it naturally encourages you, as in any walk of life, to carry on doing it, but certainly that looking after others and caring for others and helping others to improve.
[00:09:19,680] [Louise:] Would you say that they're key attributes or skills for a coach then, are there any others that you can think of?
[00:09:26,320] [Vinny Halsall:] Oh, Louis, definitely that caring element, there's that mantra out there, isn't there, when people know that you care, they'll care what you know, and that's something that I really do abide by. I think the other attributes are the enthusiasm. You've got to have that, I would say, natural desire to get on and get things done, and with that enthusiasm also recognising that the youngsters that you're working with, they are there to have fun and to enjoy the experience. So I think it's that love of life as well to try and pass that on to the youngsters, and particularly the generation of youngsters that I've worked with more and more, that sedentary lifestyle, that digital world that they've been born into, to get them out, get them running around, get them having a good time.
[00:10:18,960] [Louise:] Yeah, it's definitely an important one at the moment, isn't it?
[00:10:22,400] [Vinny Halsall:] Definitely, absolutely.
[00:10:23,760] [Jamie:] You mentioned your teacher John earlier. What was transformational about him in terms of what you learned from him, and were there any other coaches or teachers from your time when you were growing up that you really looked up to and maybe took little bits of how they approach things into your coaching now?
[00:10:41,840] [Vinny Halsall:] Yeah, so John was what we regard now, our terminology would be a generalist primary school teacher, but he clearly just loved his sport, I talked a few minutes ago about that enthusiasm, and as a primary school, if you look now, the programme that we had in terms of school team games and competitions that we entered, both for football and cricket in particular, was phenomenal really, the amount of time that he actually gave, willingly, in his own time after school, clubs, etc. In terms of other teachers, Mike Dickinson was my secondary school head of physical education. Mike was just again inspirational in terms of all those things I've said, his enthusiasm, we had a good laugh always with Mike, in fact I was talking to him just this week about one thing and another, and then as I moved up to school, Tony Brookman, again Tony sadly is no longer with us, but again those guys just gave so much time freely, and they clearly were invested in you as an individual, and also they wanted the team to be successful, they were competitive, so three great role models that I know for sure I picked up little bits from all of them.
[00:11:57,839] [Louise:] Moving on from that slightly, can you tell us a little bit more about what your experience in America was like?
[00:12:04,820] [Vinny Halsall:] So it was by completing that FA pre-limb qualification, and then it was a bit of a traditional thing that you had an opportunity through university to say, if you're a qualified coach, how about coaching during the summer months in America? So first and foremost, a fabulous opportunity to meet new people, to travel around different parts of America, it was just an opportunity to coach and have hours on the grass, it was simply about putting into practice the stuff that I'd learned, both as a young player and also through that initial coaching qualification, there's a tendency amongst coaches here in England to collect qualifications, and actually for me the most important thing is actually to collect hours on the grass by trying things out, caught a number of times in my, and in fact I was going to say in my early days, but even now I'll deliver a session that I will think, well that was a fail, but I regard a fail as being a first attempt in learning. So if coaches can take that message that if you do a session and it might be a match day where you think things haven't gone too well, treat that word fail with a positive growth mindset as a first attempt in learning or a further attempt in learning.
[00:13:16,372] [Louise:] Yeah it's almost like a something that we say quite a lot is a test and learn, so it's almost like you start something out, try it, see what you need to improve and kind of go again.
[00:13:25,207] [Vinny Halsall:] Yeah absolutely, definitely go again.
[00:13:28,047] [Jamie:] What was it then, what was kind of like the driving force behind you getting into teaching and then more the PE side then?
[00:13:33,626] [Vinny Halsall:] Well the teaching was again that love of physical activity, broader than simply football. So I played a lot of sports as a youngster and I'll go back again to my mum, bless her, saying that Vincent one day you'll be a teacher. She just saw something in me, hopefully it was the caring side, it might have been a little bit of the disciplinarian side as I got a little bit old in terms of wanting to do things in a certain way. But yeah that opportunity to work with youngsters to help and support them. I say I had a really positive educational experience and also I was the only one of the five children in the Halsall family to go to university. So I wanted to give other people that opportunity to first of all enjoy education. I say to our youngster that knowledge is power, so if you've got a little bit of knowledge, if you've got a bit of learning behind you then it opens up opportunities for you. So that was really my incentive to become a teacher again just to hopefully pass on some some good ideas and not just learning of subject specific stuff but also learning those social skills, those caring skills, that more holistic piece which actually blends into our work within the FAP team.
[00:14:52,724] [Jamie:] To anybody listening now who might be an aspiring teacher and wanting to get involved in PE, what advice would you give to those individuals?
[00:15:01,634] [Vinny Halsall:] I think it's to really view your role as much more than delivering content, delivering knowledge. So if it's physical education it's much more than teaching skills or techniques for the game of football, it's much more than teaching children how to do handstands in gymnastics. I think the mantra I'd really go with is person before player and in this case obviously put the child first so that the child is the curriculum. So if you can get to know the children that you're working with really well and the colleagues that's a really crucial part of it as well. I think that that's got to be paramount because as you get to know individuals within teacher terminology then you can manage it different, you can adapt your activities, your lessons and that's crucial to keeping the youngsters engaged and keep them learning.
[00:15:55,607] [Jamie:] If you look at the role that you've got today then, can you tell us a little bit more about it and how you're helping teachers in your area in the South West deliver physical education?
[00:16:04,957] [Vinny Halsall:] Well first of all I'm very privileged to be in the role. We're a team of just eight PE officers across the country and for me the magic really happens when we've got our face-to-face CPD events. I've already mentioned holistic development so one of our workshops is around whole child development whereby we provide examples of practices, activities and games but it really is looking to develop not just the technical skills of the children but also naturally their physical skills because they're going to be active but also their social skills and their psychological skills so that's one of our workshops around holistic development and the other one is called learning through games. I have a mantra that goes no laps, no lines, no lectures and if you consider we all still see it, I do in the grassroots world, you will see coaches having children stood in lines waiting to do stuff and particularly on a cold rainy November, December night that's just poor practice when there's so much more that you can do so learning through games is essentially using games whether that be games where the children, the players are matched up in terms of numbers, whether there is an overload in terms of numbers so for example if you've got an odd number of seven children that you're working with, I'm not saying seven within a single class or group but your whole cohort might be split into groups of seven then you can actually play overloads of 4v3 and naturally you can play your matched up games where you've got equal numbers so there's so much richness around providing a games based program and that's one of our other workshops and then the beauty of that face-to-face program Jamie is that we've also got the the online CPD which colleagues can go on to the boot room, look for online CPD for teachers and the really good thing about that is it's manageable bite-sized chunks of learning so the four workshops that we deliver they're broken down into half hour 45 minutes modules if you like - it's free which everybody would be pleased to hear about and it's also certificated and I think that piece is really important every one of us no matter what we're doing in terms of our learning we all enjoy being told well done Louise that was great really enjoyed that today thank you and when you get a certificate then there's no better bit of tangible praises there whether it's an e-certificate or a paper copy to say I've just achieved something so I think our support of teachers and trainee teachers is to help them with their professional development and learning but also to reward them if you like with that little bit of a well-done because I think that's really important.
[00:18:53,649] [Jamie:] What would you say are the key considerations teachers should have when they're delivering PE?
[00:18:59,655] [Vinny Halsall:] Well I think first and foremost if we're talking within our state secondary schools you've got big classes and so I think the important thing that the priorities got to be to provide engaging activities we talked earlier about arrival activities so arrival activities within the coaching context can be very very similar within the teaching context now of course you've got to be mindful of safety and that's safety in around changing rooms safety and sport tools safety on the sports field but actually getting the children going with engaging arrival activities I'm thinking for example we've got a lovely activity called three in a row where the children basically play 3v3 in a gridded area they can set up and it can get them moving straight away - but linked to those activities there's got to be a clear learning intention within schools we call that a learning objective and by having planned learning intentions then obviously you can start to scaffold the learning for the children and then the final piece is what we used to call - in fact we still call differentiation or managing difference but within the education world that's actually called adapting activities so my top tip for teachers at this point would be re-energize your lessons with AAA standing for adaptable arrival activities and if you can have an activity that can easily be changed whether it's through the use of equipment or the space that you're using hopefully that can help to engage all the children that you're working with from the get-go.
[00:20:37,547] [Jamie:] If there is one what would you say the main priority is when providing PE lessons?
[00:20:42,756] [Vinny Halsall:] High levels of active learning time so that can naturally be - it's implicit isn't it that active learning time in PE is the children on the move so I mentioned earlier no laps no lines no lectures I can still be guilty by the way of talking too long to my group of players within the grassroots context but I really do check and challenge myself on that and I get my coaching colleagues at my grassroots club to do the same and in return I check and challenge them as well when they're talking for too long but really having the children active physically active for long periods of the lesson. now that's not simply let the game be the teacher so you know set up some games and let them play and then don't support don't do your individual or small group interventions that that's really crucial it's crucial that you have effective questioning strategies as well whether that be a small group individual or on occasions to the whole class but that active learning can also be through having the children now and again having a team talk in their small groups and that's where the social and psychological development comes in because I like to talk about butterflying so let's paint a picture here we've got 32 children in the class which is realistic and I might have them set up in games of 4v4 so if we do the maths yeah we're going to have four games of 4v4 going on I think that's 32 better happy because maths was my second subject but my point being that at any one time I might be working with just eight children but at any one time I might only be working with two children from that eight for example Louise if you're actually maybe my lead pupil I'm not saying my star player but my lead pupil in one team and Jamie you're the lead pupil in another you're the pupils who know have got real good social skills I might actually call you off the pitch briefly and give you a bit of information for you then to take back to your teams. Now while I'm talking to you two there's a game of 3v3 still going on because I've taken you out the 4v4 at the same time there's three other games of 4v4 still going on so there's those what we would actually call effective teaching strategies which are really important as well and that blends into something called assessment for learning because after I've given you two a bit of information you drop back into your game you lead a bit of team talk and I observe and what I'm observing is how well you communicate the information back to your team and then how well are both of those teams then maybe progressing the activity. So dive down a few rabbit holes there but there's some of the things that we actually again try to work with our teachers and our trainee teachers to demonstrate to them how we can affect best practice within PE lessons.
[00:23:31,310] [Louise:] Really interesting thinking like watching your messages been passed on and then just watching it play out in front of you I guess that was really good way to review whether you've communicated well.
[00:23:41,011] [Vinny Halsall:] Yeah and I think the real skill there Louise is actually you're looking at stuff and it's actually what you're seeing and again that links back if we go full circle now back to your learning intention or your learning objectives that you will have shared with the children at some point hopefully and that is key because we've all been there where we we bat on with our coaching session or our PE lesson and then at some point we realize that we've not shared with the children - there might be good reason for that that might be a deliberate strategy by the way not to share your learning intention in the first five minutes but it needs to be shared at some point so that the children have an idea of of where they're going with that learning journey for that hour for example.
[00:24:22,974] [Louise:] Yeah and how important is it that children have access to great experiences in physical education?
[00:24:30,380] [Vinny Halsall:] Oh it's absolutely vital I do a little activity on our face-to-face events where I talk to the the colleagues the training teachers the teachers about this concept of PE and if you follow me on Twitter you'll see me often use the hashtag PE and I actually say to the guys in front of me okay come on we're now getting to the end of the day whether that be a three-hour face-to-face event or a full day what's your hashtag PE you know mine is play explore what's yours and the common answers that come out with the colleagues come out with will be positive engagement participation and enthusiasm so whatever adjective you want to put on it they're all the things that we need to bring to life because ultimately every child from 5 to 16 years of age has to do physical education. So let's make it enjoyable. That's really, really important. And if it is enjoyable, then they're obviously gonna come bouncing into the lessons again and wanting to take part. And naturally that's inspiring them in terms of to improve their performance. But as I said earlier, also improving their social skills, their psychological skills, building their self-esteem, building their self-worth. That's really, really important. And by the way, that's a huge challenge within the context of school PE lessons, whether it's primary school or secondary school, because across a group of 28 to 32 children, let's say, which a typical class sizes, being able to engage every child and being able to understand those individual needs, that's a massive piece of work. But that's why teaching is a proper profession where you have to go away for three or four years to university to learn the ropes. And then even at that point, you're a novice. So I've been doing what I do for 30 years and I still learn something new every time I coach or every time I deliver a workshop with teachers. So yeah, every day is a school day.
[00:26:29,591] [Jamie:] As well as your day job with the FA, you are an active grassroots volunteer as your coach and on the 14 side, don't you? So, but how long have you actually been involved with your team?
[00:26:40,931] [Vinny Halsall:] Yeah, I've been involved, as is often the way, when our young son started to fall in love with footy. And if I can just dive down that rabbit hole, by the way, through my experience as a teacher, I never, ever pushed our son into football because I'd seen too many youngsters by the time they reached middle to older teenage years switch off because it hadn't been their love. It had actually been their parents, pushy parents, if you like. Now that might sound a bit controversial, but that was our strategy because my wife also loves sport. He fell in love with football through a group of friends at primary school. And so by the time he was ready and wanting to go and play more footy, and that's all he wanted to do. Can we go and play some footy? Can I go and play with some of my mates? Then the grassroots club that we took him to was the club that I used to coach as first team manager 20 years ago. And I also played there for a couple of seasons. So that was an easy and obvious response to what he wanted to do. And he was five years of age. He's just turned 13 last week. So it's been a long journey. And actually the journey has run parallel with me moving out of teaching full-time to working with the FA. And that for us as a family has been really positive because I've spent lots of quality time with him. Now as his grassroots coach, it wasn't my intention, by the way. I was there going to be one of those parents just to help and support, not least with what I do as a day job. But I got asked and yeah, got sucked in the way you do. And again, that love and that enthusiasm for coaching and for working with others has been fabulous. So yeah, they're now moving into their under 14 season, which will start at the end of August. And it's been brilliant for me to actually see those youngsters develop from five, six years of age into now 12, 13, what will this season be 14 year olds in terms of their growth and their development. People often say to me, how come you're coaching grassroots when you've got whatever qualifications? And I'm like, because you learn so much. And also this is the most important age group. When those youngsters are five, six, seven years of age, we talk about that being the golden age of learning. And I'd like to think that I've helped those youngsters to become better footy players, but also better young people.
[00:29:08,551] [Jamie:] So you had quite a big impact on them for quite a long amount of time. Like you say, it's such a vital stage of development that's gonna set them up for in the future as they move through the age groups. Have you found any challenges at all with coaching young players or now obviously as young teenagers and how have you overcome them?
[00:29:29,271] [Vinny Halsall:] Oh yeah, there's so many challenges and it's really important that I say here that no matter what my experience is, and I say it's 30 plus years from when I first set out as a coach, I will get lots of things right. And do things that the youngsters really enjoy and the parents enjoy, but I've also got quite a few things wrong. And I think that's really important to recognize that there's nobody out there, whether you be myself, Pep Guardiola, Jürgen Klopp, Serena Wiegmann, there's nobody out there who isn't regularly making mistakes or making a judgment call that might not be on the money. But I think for me, the key thing is about building those positive relationships with the children and teenagers now, and also with their parents. So I really like to engage positively with my parent group. It's quite a bizarre one cause actually some of them I used to teach in my days in teaching. So that's putting an age on me perhaps, but age is only a number. But it's about building those positive relationships. And I think for me, those challenges have been when maybe you've made decisions that haven't been received well, either by the youngster, the young player, the young child, and the more challenging one at a time can be where parents don't receive a decision or a judgment that you've made. And I just try and sustain positive interaction with the parents, making sure the parents are clear around our philosophy. But I also give the children, I've done this most effectively in the last 18 months, I give them their voice, both within practice sessions and on match days where they can lead team talks, but also I do some player insight surveys where I send them a very, very simple Microsoft form, you know, minimal questions. I think the most I've ever sent out is seven or eight questions. Take them 20 minutes to do. They're all digitally savvy. Of course it needs parental or carer support as well. And their voice comes through very, very strongly through those surveys. Some of the insights that I've got from the youngsters, so powerful, you know, the good, the bad, and the , by the way. Yeah, it's not all that Vinny's a great coach and we love what he does here. There's plenty of other stuff as well. And it's actually more often than not, the other stuff that I will look at first, because we all need to get better in terms of what we're doing. But more importantly, we need to meet the needs of the individual children and the whole group. Can I give you an example?
[00:31:55,951] [Jamie:] I was just going to ask if you can share as an example from that.
[00:32:00,551] [Vinny Halsall:] Yeah, so, you know, working from the youngsters when they were under sevens, under eights, so their first little delve into competitive football, let's call it organized football, structured football within a league program. So playing five-on-five footy. And my approach has always been several things. Number one, equal game time. Number two, the rolling substitutes would actually be a really flexible approach, whereby the youngsters will be encouraged to play in different positions at different times. And I go back to when we were under eights, under nines, we had four, five, even six boys within the squad of nine who'd have a going goal. Now that's really, really important as part of their learning. And the boys simply accepted. We didn't have any girls within our group. We got separate girls teams at our club. The boys accepted, you know, the veneers coach is asking us to do this. And the parents by and large accepted it. But what you're seeing now is the youngsters really demonstrating their ability to play in, you know, not a massive variety of positions, but two or three different positions, accepting the fact that there will still be rolling substitutes. And I've always talked about performance being the key part of the process. If you produce a good performance individually as a team, you're going to score lots of goals. I've never been a massive one on the outcome by result. More and more, the youngsters are telling me the most recent survey, what have they enjoyed most in their under 13 season? It was winning the league. So our league, the Oxford Youth Football League, fabulous league. I think there's about eight and a half thousand youngsters playing that league. And they organized four under 13s down mini season. So our September to December league was actually in group E. And my squad actually won that league. First time they've ever won anything. Now that comes through very, very strongly in the end of season survey. They enjoyed most winning the league, winning games, scoring goals. Now that tells me, and I know this anyway, through my experience and knowledge, they're at that age and stage psychologically where they're moving. They've moved from little boys into teenagers. And actually that's self-determination, if you like, to be successful, yeah? Both individually, but also amongst their peers is something that's really important. So this season, I've got the challenge of marrying that ongoing message around performance is the most important piece with the fact that I know that they want to win games and now they've got a taste of winning a mini league. They want to have more of it. So this season is going to be a real challenge in terms of combining those messages, but one that I'm looking forward to.
[00:34:38,031] [Louise:] Have you got any ideas in mind of how you're going to manage that? Have you started to think about it yet?
[00:34:42,391] [Vinny Halsall:] Great question, Louise. And the most important one is actually one of my questions in the survey to the youngsters was what would you like next season to, or how would you like next season to look different in terms of how Vinny does things? And a few of the things that the youngsters have fed back is less frequent substitutions. So I am going to move to only doing substitutions at half time and in the second half, whereas so far we've tended to make them on 20 minutes, 40 minutes. And then if youngsters need to come off either because they picked up an injury or they're clearly tired. So just hanging on to that piece, sharing that information clearly with parents. So whether that be through WhatsApp message, this season I'm actually planning, - the parents don't know this. So if you're listening parents, yeah, we will be actually having a face-to-face meeting. I'll be inviting them to a face-to-face meeting. Number one, to share some of the insights from the survey, sorry. And also to say, and here's three or four things that we're going to do just a little bit differently this season. And by the way, most of them are based on what your boys have told us through the Insight Survey.
[00:35:51,911] [Jamie:] Coach Cast exclusive there. Yeah, and hopefully after this that you come back onto Coach Cast and share more stories as well. But it'd be good to hear how that went, that development over the next season and how you've managed that.
[00:36:07,391] [Vinny Halsall:] So that's really interesting being able to change, if they change in that mindset, how are you actually going to be able to handle that? Yeah, absolutely. And I think the key one is that, you know, ultimately they are only 13. In fact, we've got one or two our year young. So we're talking about 12, 13, and some becoming 14 years of age. They're still children. And ultimately as the coach, it is for me to guide the process. And the process is about quality of performance, but recognizing the fact that they want to win games of footy as well. So those less frequent substitutions, also an element of, if I just throw this one in, about selection this season being based a little bit more on merit, which to be honest, it always has been, but it's been more of an implicit thing whereby if youngsters have failed to come to the last couple of practice sessions, then they know, because parents have been informed that I can't pick them that weekend, because you need to be at practice sessions, not least from the team cohesion, not that we're working on anything absolutely magical tactically, but it's that bit about commitments as well, which is really important. And that's part of our Easington Sports Football Club philosophy. So the parents understand that. So it's, yeah, I'd love to come back and again, you know, be very honest and open and authentic in terms of how it's gone, because it won't all smell of roses. It won't all go brilliantly well, but that's the challenge and that's the beauty. And I think if I blend that into what I do in the day job with the FA, I quite enjoy talking to coaches and teachers about things that I've done that haven't gone well, because it's very, very easy to stand there and them see you as the font of all knowledge, the expert, the guru. And I think it's really important to say in terms of that authenticity to, you know, shine a light on, maybe not too strongly, not all the time on the things that haven't gone well, because we all get things wrong now and again.
[00:38:01,831] [Jamie:] Do you have any top tips that you would give to coaches and teachers as well for working with teenagers? I think those teenage years are fascinating. And I think there's got to be that element of... of recognising that as teenagers they've got some really good knowledge, they've got some really good skills, whether that be the social skills, whether that be the decision making skills. So I think if I was to sum it up it would be voice and choice, give them some ownership and if I can give you an example, we're only two practice sessions into our new season. We've started back earlier than we normally would have and straight away our arrival activity is more explicitly this time round for under-14s a proper warm-up and I call it the red zone. It's called the red zone because it's marked out with red cones. So colour-blind awareness, I don't use red cones for anything tactical to mark out stuff on a pitch but I've got a set of big super-sized red cones, it'd be a shame not to use them. So I actually use them for the warm-up area, plus I talk to the children about the fact that the red zone is where they actually get their heart rate up, they're going to start to get hot and sweaty, hence red zone. And the boys are already used to the fact that when they go in the red zone they're leading the activities for three, four, five minutes. You know, don't get me wrong, myself and the other coaches will drop in with some key information but they're leading the activities in terms of getting themselves warmed up, getting themselves ready then to move into more explicit rival activity and then obviously into our games and our practices.
[00:39:45,499] [Jamie:] Just before we wrap up this section Vinnie, it wasn't that long ago since last time I saw you we had a good interview about a few topics that will be for content on our website but during our chat you told me a lovely story about something you did after a match with a certain team. All I'll say is it's a story about sweet, so that's jogging in memory, I think you know which one I'm about to ask about. But do you want to tell our listeners what it was, why you did it and what happened the next time you played that team? I just thought it was a nice story to share.
[00:40:17,259] [Vinny Halsall:] Yeah, it's one that I'm very fond of because again it also gives a real idea of the development of the youngsters that I've been working with. So essentially from we were under-eight, we've always had a parent group who've been in charge of refreshments and so at the end of the game we would always go over and one of the parents, a couple of the parents would have always brought something for their boys to munch on. So it might be a chocolate bar, never the most healthy by the way, but if you're thinking they've put in a lot of effort, at the end of the day they're children so a chocolate bar, maybe homemade cake or whatever, there'd always be something. Covid arrived and then I took that idea to another level where I actually said to the parents, we're now going to do sweets, so a little candy bar or whatever for each of the boys and then that blended into me suggesting that we'd also offer some to the opposition in terms of that sportsmanship. So we started to hand over from our captain to the opposition captain a bag of sweets. The vast majority of opposition managers and coaches had obviously teared up before the game, if not during the week with a phone call to say we'd like to hand over a bag of sweets were absolutely great and then towards the back end of last season, one of the teams that we'd played probably about six months earlier, we did our handshake, they had just won the game by the way and their coach, I was delighted for him because he's a really nice chap and I said our captain's got a bag of sweets so can we do our fist pumps and hand over the sweets? He said yeah, fabulous, yeah that would be great and I'm sure his son's name is George, he said George can you go and get ours? And that coach had taken on board the idea of handing over a bag of sweets and actually reciprocated. So a bag of sweets went both ways and for me that was enough evidence if you like that that's a nice thing to do and I try and get coaches now and I've got a little role for the Oxford Youth League as the respect officer. When we talk about respect, take that letter R, can we actually try and build rapport and relationships with the opposition coach rather than seeing them as being an opponent? They're another coach, often another parent on the sideline so let's build that rapport, let's build that relationship and let both of us or four of us if there's two coaches per team be good role models and I think just that idea of at the end of the game saying to the opposition team thank you for coming because without you we wouldn't have had a game. So we've been doing that for a number of seasons and having that coach reciprocate recently was a really nice moment. Player insight survey, hot off the press, a number of my boys have said for the end of this season and this is just indicative of the fact that they're moving from being little boys into teenagers, they don't like the idea of sweets anymore at the end of a game and that's absolutely fine because that's their voice and choice and that could be the fact that they are through hormonal development becoming more competitive, it is more about winning games so I've got to take that message on board that maybe the sweets at the end of the game is no longer what they're looking for but it's one that I'm actually mulling over at the minute and one that I will actually engage the parents with to say to the parents what do you think? Because one thing for sure, it's really important to continue to celebrate the matchday experience that we've just had and hopefully that will be an inspirational experience for the youngsters. Obviously within our FA grassroots programme we're talking about trying to develop more skilful players through inspirational opportunities which include matchday through transformational coaching so I might need to transform my strategy if it's not going to be bags of sweets, we certainly still need to celebrate the game win lose or draw, again the good the bad the because some games will get very tense and very fraught but it's important to take a breath and to celebrate ideally with the opposition and that opportunity to say thank you for the game but there still needs to be something that recognises that everybody's worked really hard, give of their best in what hopefully has been an inspirational matchday opportunity.
[00:44:44,899] [Louise:] That would be a good thing to put on the community wouldn't it? Yeah absolutely, yeah good thinking Louise and as always there will be coaches out there who've got some brilliant ideas and I think this one particularly, you know what have you done that's really engaged your 14, 15, 16 year olds? What sorts of things have been to celebrate that matchday experience?
[00:45:07,673] [Jamie:] Really appreciate you telling that story to our listeners, thank you very much for that.
[00:45:11,539] [Louise:] Okay so this next section we're going to be focusing on coaching community questions and we thought we'd get some insight from you. So we do get quite a few questions about how to engage players and also how to challenge players, could you give us any insight or tips around how you potentially do that? Yeah thanks Louise and with our bit of prep in the lead up to today, I have planned this one sometimes a lot of the things are off the cuff but for me I'm going to actually say to the coaching colleagues out there, it's a step by step process that I'm about to advise you on. So really important that you engage all of your children, all of your young players, if you're a grassroots coach working with adults, all of your adults in practice sessions and in matchdays. But if we just shine a light on the practice sessions, it's that use of the step principle to adapt your activities. So what do I mean by that? Well one size doesn't fit all. So let's say you've got 16 players within your squad, they've all got individual needs and some players might be quite similar in terms of their technical and their tactical and their physical capabilities but if you can think about adapting and modifying your practices based on, first of all if we think about a step by step process, the S is for the space or the size or the shape of your practice or your game. The T is for the task. For example, you might have, we have a game called With to Win and the task involves players trying to break out into wide channels and within that task there's a time constraint. Individual players can have possession of the ball in the wide channel for five seconds without being tackled. Now of course you might have some players who can really move with the ball quickly and are technically very good so the task for them might be rather than five seconds, it might be three seconds. You can also modify the equipment so let's consider how you use the size or the use of different types of goals so we know we've got our Pug pop-up goals and we know that we've got our roll on goals if you've got access to them or your Samba goals so think about maybe how you use your equipment and adapt that. An example will be on occasions I actually want my goalkeepers to play on the pitch because that helps them to see the picture maybe that the midfield player has when he or she is trying to receive the ball from the keeper and actually all of the goalkeepers within my squad also like to play on the pitch so there might be times where we'll play a game without goalkeepers so thinking about that physical goal it could be that you simply place a cone one metre inside each post and you have to score between the cone and the post for it to count as a goal. I also like to hang bibs in what the boys call the top bins and if you hang a bib in the top bin and they can actually score by hitting the bib they get more points or more points value for each goal so that's the clever and creative use of equipment and the P is actually for players or people so again think about modifying your practices whereby squad of 16 you're not always playing 8 v 8 games or 4 v 4 smaller games but you might actually within let's say two practices which you've got eight players in each you might have an overload five versus three in each area so the five players because you're working on an in possession theme an attacking theme they're the players that you actually overload so that they can achieve some more success. Naturally you could go matched up in terms of your players so you're 4 v 4 into your 8 v 8 but I think it's really important that we try and spend a lot of time in terms of that people and players in making sure that there is some opposition and some interference because if you only ever do unopposed practices whereby the children the young players are working against no opposition then I would argue and there's a lot of theoretical underpinning to this which I won't dive into now that that is limiting the children's opportunity to learn because they've got limited decision making processes going on if there are no live active players up against them if they're unopposed that's not what the game looks like on a Saturday or a Sunday so hopefully there's enough in there for coaches to think about the use of the step principle in terms of what I've described in terms of the S the T the E and the P.
[00:49:58,939] [Jamie:] Well moving on from helping out with practice design there we've got a little challenge for you that's based around your own practice because it is coming up to the end of the show which means as regular listeners know it is time for a swift session.
[00:50:13,579] [Louise:] You might remember this from last time you were on it's a it's another 30 second challenge and this time we ask you to come up with a session idea and explain it to us in 30 seconds are you up for the challenge?
[00:50:25,859] [Vinny Halsall:] Yeah sounds great.
[00:50:27,299] [Once again we have a little bit of music to add to the tension so we'll set that up and put a timer with it so 30 seconds on the clock time starts now. pitch, whatever numbers you're working with, you split it vertically down into lengths. So you've got a bigger middle channel, but then you've got two quite narrow wide channels. The aim of the game is can you create width, give the children opportunity to run unopposed in the wide channels, to create goal scoring opportunities in and around the penalty area.
[00:51:08,902] [Vinny Halsall:] I just wanted to get the whistle in there. Yeah, really, really good. Really good stuff
[00:51:15,022] [Louise:] in there. Plenty of time to spare there. Is there anything else you want to add to it? Now that we've come out with the timed section? I was going to say, I think I was a little bit light on time there, wasn't I? I think that that concept of width to win, it actually encourages and this is an important technical piece, actually. One of my coaching colleagues said, oh, yeah, it's given the youngsters a chance to dribble. And I said, well, is that dribbling where they're running down a wide channel unopposed? And we agreed that actually that's not dribbling, that's running with the ball, which are subtle differences in terms of technique, but really, really important. And linking it back to the children, who are the most important part of this equation. I then had that conversation with them as a group. So when you're in the wide channel, what are you doing? And one of them said, oh, I'm dribbling. And I said, but are you? And then we dive down that little bit of Q&A, a bit of discussion where we recognised that actually, technically, you're running with the ball with bigger touches out your feet, because you've got your head up. You've heard this one before, like a meerkat, you can see space in front of you. And therefore you need to make use of that space by covering the ground quickly. So that'll be my little bit of extra information, which definitely would have taken me over to 30 seconds.
[00:52:27,662] [Louise:] It's always good to just add a little bit extra if it needs it. So thanks for that. Exactly.
[00:52:32,361] [Jamie:] Well, thank you very much for being on again, Vinnie. It's been great to listen to you. Thank you very much. Well, thank you, Jamie, Louise for hosting in a brilliant fashion.
[00:52:42,022] [Vinny Halsall:] As always, a great experience for me. And most importantly, I think the coaches out there will pick up a few top tips, put them into action. And obviously, hopefully we'll hear back from them on the coaching community. Well, another great podcast, Louise, what was the key point or key points that you've picked out from the chat?
[00:53:01,138] [Louise:] Yeah, there were so many. And what I really liked was failure is the first attempt at learning. So it may be that you try something and it doesn't work out the first time. But what can you learn from it? And how can you move forward with it? So I thought that was a really good message. One of the other ones was no laps, no lines and no lectures. It's a really good and quick way to kind of check yourself and make sure that you kind of look around. Is anybody stood in a line or have you been speaking for too long? Yeah, I really like that one. It ensures that there's plenty of ball rolling time there and that kids are just being active really rather than stood around. That was a good one. For me, it was the line that Vinnie mentioned earlier on in the podcast. I think it was around when we was talking about like coach skills and attributes. And he mentioned when people know that you care, they'll care about what you know. And it's just that establishing that you are, you know, you do care about people and that you are thoughtful and that you put in them first and then they're likely to be listening and buying into what you're saying. So I think that was quite a nice message to take away.
Right, well, that wraps it up for today. But don't forget to check out the episode description for all 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.