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[Jamie]

Hello and welcome to Coachcast by England Football Learning the coaching podcast brings you insight from people across the game today. We're trying to Ben Hardaker a casual coach developer for the FA, to discover his journey so far and to get his insight into managing player behaviour and their engagement levels. Hi, Ben. Welcome to the show. How are you?

[Ben]

Hi, Jamie. I'm very good. Thank you. How are you?

[Jamie]

Yeah, all good, all good. You know, just before we dive in to the show, I will apologise, firstly to you and obviously the listeners. Louise is away today, so you've got to put with me and I do have a little bit of a cold, so apologies for that. I'll try and speak as little as possible, you know, and we'll dive into the show, but I just want to put that out there. Apologies to everybody listening, but thank you very much for joining us today Ben. It's great to have you on. Can you tell us a bit about your role and paint a picture of what you do really?

[Ben]

Yeah of course, as you alluded to, I'm a casual coach developer for the Football Association and I currently deliver on coach education courses from the introduction of coaching football through the UA for C and UA for B licence to support volunteer coaches and also those coaches who are aspiring for a career in coaching, who we refer to as intentional coaches. That includes delivering on courses via a blended learning approach, so both online and face-to-face delivery methods, supporting and developing coach understanding, and then working with them on a one-to-one basis within their context, so their environments, to support them achieving their qualifications.

[Jamie]

Oh, brilliant. Thank you very much for that. Now, just before we kind of discover a bit more about you, a bit more about your role and your experiences, as this is a coaching podcast, coaches could be on the way to training while they're tuning into this. So we always like to give them some great advice early on in the episode and we call this our arrival activity and it's where we give our guests 30 seconds to give us as many top coaching tips as they can. So does that sound like a challenge that you're willing to take on Ben?

[Ben]

Yeah let's go for it.

[Jamie]

Brilliant so I'm gonna set up the music you'll have 30 seconds and when the music starts you can begin.

[Ben]

Fantastic yeah The first one is try and create an empowering learning environment for your players. So ensure the environment is kind of friendly, fun, inclusive. Second thing, keep it simple. Do not overcomplicate coaching. Ask yourself whether your sessions allow the players to experience realism, relevance and repetition aligned to their age of stage of development. Third one, become a student of the game and coaching. And my fourth point is fail forwards. Coaching is difficult. Last thing, people before players.

[Jamie]

*** on time, fantastic. Got loads in there, some really great top tips. Right, well we'll get into the rest of the show then Ben, thanks for doing that. We always kind of start this section off by asking, I guess, what was your first experience of football like?

[Ben]

Yeah, I think my first experience, and I'll just give the listeners some context, I'm from a rugby league family predominantly. So I was kind of the one who went down the football route just through my interest from school. I'd say school probably sparked my interest in football. My first experience and memory of football was watching Euro 96 when Paul Gascoigne scored the goal against Scotland. All I remember is on the Monday, everyone at school trying to recreate that goal on the playground. That was my first football memory, the first tournament I remember watching and experiencing. And it was really interesting because I played football at school and that was it. I didn't play football formally in terms of like grassroots football until I was 12 years old. I played for the Rugby Union and Rugby League up to that point. I always played for primary school, especially when we had a primary school team in year five and year six. And my first kind of memory of playing football was, formally in that respect in matches, was scoring a goal in a primary school tournament. And I was just kind of astonished that I'd scored, because It was kind of like, oh, this doesn't happen very often. They were my first experiences of football. Yeah, probably kind of blessed at a younger age to play a variety of sports, I'd argue, which probably helped me when I joined football later.

[Jamie]

Do you want to just kind of elaborate, like, what, You just say that it probably helped you with football when you got more involved later on. What sort of skills do you think are transferable from other sports?

[Ben]

Yeah, I'd probably say physical skills. I don't mean strength or anything like that. Obviously, playing rugby, it was more the ability to move and weave and be agile, I suppose. Then when I started playing, obviously I footballed the ability to be able to do that. I think I developed because obviously in rugby you've got to weave in and out, otherwise you get tackled very quickly. So those movement pattern type stuff, but also I'd say probably a lot more of the social elements of it. Rugby and football can be different in different contexts. And it was very interesting, obviously, that in rugby, a lot of kind of the social elements are brought into it from an earlier age. So nobody can speak to the referee, You have to call them sir. And that respect element of it was probably something that I transferred in. Because obviously the technical tactical stuff is different because of how the game is played. Even though rugby and football are very transferable in terms of being invasion games, attack versus defence, it was a different skill set I had to learn. But I'd say I probably learned that more informally through the playing at school and playing on the street. I don't know whether there's a coincidence in this. I mean, I wasn't the greatest player at football. I'm not going to profess to that. And I didn't play at a high level, but I'd say probably that self-exploration at a younger age probably allowed me to figure things out a little bit more on my own rather than being coached. I don't know, I think there's a big part of that. I think sometimes we can be guilty of it at the younger ages of overcoaching and trying to kind of mould, whereas exploration is huge at those ages in terms of the technique and what kind of techniques that young players will use.

[Jamie]

Yeah, it's a really important point to take away there. The importance of playing, like I say, self-discovery is massive. So that's a little bit of your story about playing football. When did your interest in coaching start then and how exactly did you get involved?

[Ben]

Yeah I'd say coaching started for me I was at college studying a vocational qualification so BTEC in sports science and as part of that we had to do a sports coaching module and this kind of really sparked my interest and it wasn't we weren't coaching football I think At the time I was on a program where it was like a football education program at a local college, which was linked to a local non-league club. And so I was playing football, observing a full-time coach, who'd been a professional football player, work every day. So that was quite an insight and helped me, and supported me in understanding what coaching looked like. But then we did the sports coaching module, that the lecturers were kind of of the belief that, look, you play a lot of football, you're not going to coach football. We're going to use kind of sports that you wouldn't normally be involved in. And we're going to get you to coach them, which was really interesting at that point. So it was like, you will lead a volleyball session or you'll lead a badminton session, a coaching session. So it was kind of having to go away and understand different sports and then how to then apply it to help people understand it and develop their skills and techniques. That kind of hooked me a little bit. And then from that, I was asked to help and volunteer with my brother's under 12s grassroots team, which was a very, very kind of sharp learning curve because I went in there with, obviously, I was still playing the game and I thought it was Mourinho and very quickly, very quickly I learned that I wasn't and these are 11 and 12 year olds. And the things I was doing as a 17, 18 year old at that point within my football kind of sessions and playing the game, it wasn't appropriate. And I was, here's me trying to do a phase of play with 11 year olds and not wondering why it's not working. And I learned a lot very quickly from that experience.

[Jamie]

What was, how did you feel, should I say, like in your first experience, whether it was the badminton or volleyball session that you was putting on or even the first football session, how did you feel getting involved for the first time?

[Ben]

I think I'd be lying if I didn't say nervous. Nervous, and I still get nervous coaching today. That's never ever gone away. But then once I'm in, I'm kind of like, right, I've got this now. But I think the feeling was just seeing people improve was the catalyst for me, So trying to help people. Did I get it right early on? Probably not, because I probably did a lot of instruction and a lot of telling. Whereas over the course of my coaching career, I've probably learned how to differentiate that and use different methods to help people understand why and how they're doing it. And that exploration element we mentioned earlier. So I look back and think, probably a very authoritative coach at the start, with you must do this and this must look like this right now. I just enjoyed seeing people improve and that was kind of a hook, watching people improve. I don't just mean technically with the skills of the sport, but also seeing people improve physically, psychologically and socially as well. And the real impact of it, as coaches, I think we underestimate sometimes the impact we can have on people and how much of a positive influence we can be, especially with younger participants who are still kind of trying to mold and shape their understanding of the world and how socialisation works. I think we've got such a strong part to play in that as coaches and I think we should never, ever, regardless of whatever level we coach at, we should never underestimate the importance of that.

[Jamie]

And is that sort of the thing that you enjoy most about coaching, being able to have that impact and see that development in players?

[Ben]

Yeah, I think so and I think I mentioned at the start in my top tips, for me people come before players and the end goal is we would love every player we coach to go on and play in the Premier League or represent England. That's what the kind of ultimate dream is, but we know that that isn't going to happen. But what we can hope for is that every player we come into contact with and coach will be part of the football family for the rest of their life, hopefully. Whether that's playing, whether it's going to an officiating role, whether it's volunteering, whether it's coaching, whether it's the performance and medical side of it, we've just got to hope can we keep them engaged with the game and do they love the game but can we give them some skills both kind of personally and on the playing pitch that are going to help them understand and develop those areas and continue to flourish.

[Jamie]

Would you say your playing experiences at all and through other sports have influenced your coaching approach?

[Ben]

I'd say so, I'd say my coaching approach has probably been more influenced by the people I've been fortunate enough to kind of be coached by or work with in the coaching landscape. I think that's kind of shaped a lot of what I do. And I try and take things from everyone. And regardless, as a coach developer, now I'm going out and I'm watching coaches who are aspiring to be a UEFA C or UEFA B coach. And I'm stood there watching a session going, Oh, I like that. I'm going to use that. Or I like the idea behind this, the concept you're trying to get out of it. I'm going to take that and I'm going to see what I can do with it. And I think, I think that's coaching. I think the more we can take from each other, because for me, nothing is new in coaching. Everything is just evolved and kind of everything just kind of goes around and it can work on cycles at times. I find something's a trend and it's in and then something's not, but then we take things and we add to it and we adapt it. And I think the biggest thing is for coaches, mold that to your context. So if you see something that you like, be able to go, right, what does this look like with my group of under sevens on a Wednesday evening? Or what does it look like with my group of under 15 girls on a Friday night? Is making it contextual to you and your environment and what your players want and need?

[Jamie]

Yeah, that's a really important point. It's like the resources we give out of sessions on the website. It's like, this is kind of a bit of a base layer but take it, adapt it and mould it to your context and how best you know your players best. So it's a really important piece of advice there. You gave us a little bit of insight into your role with the FA, but do you want to give us a little bit more detail into what your journey's been like from first starting out coaching to the role that you've got today.

[Ben]

Yeah, of course, obviously, just I mentioned it earlier, I started as a volunteer coach in grassroots. That was kind of my introduction to coaching and my journey. And then I've been really fortunate enough along my journey to work in a lot of different contexts and environments. So from grassroots to working for the national governing body, the FA full time across two different periods and part-time in coach development roles. But then really fortunate to work across the talent pathways in both the male and female game and support development of players within those pathways. So yeah, it's been quite a varied journey, but one that I've learned a lot from through being able to differentiate between different contexts and working with different players, different ages. I'd be lying if I said my experience wasn't primarily in the foundation phase, because that's where I spent quite a lot of my coaching career, but then I've always tried to kind of diversify that and go and work with all the players to understand, right, what does this look like? Because I think if we know what it looks like up here, that can influence how we work with the younger players. I have a real passion for working in the foundation phase because I think that's where, and this is why, if we think of it as a pyramid, that's why it's the broadest part, because we have so much to help and develop them with. And we've got to kind of give them a toolbox to progress. So throughout that, we've got to ensure that, and this is in a role that I've previously held within the male talent pathway in an academy, my thought process has always been as a foundation phase coach, how can I equip these players and pass them on to the youth development phase with all the kind of skills and attributes that they're going to need to flourish within that phase? And that's where I've always been thinking it's been kind of like steps along the way, how does it do it? But I also think, and I'm a qualified teacher as well, so that has helped my coaching I feel, and it's probably more from the kind of social psychological elements of it that it's really helped me be able to kind of come up with strategies and ideas around what does learning look like within a football context. Although I teach in a classroom and in a sports hall and on the pitch at times, it's right how do we embed some of the teaching principles and learning principles within coaching because I think there's a real value there because we've got the hook through football so we can influence learning.

[Jamie]

Quite a wide range of experiences there which is great especially for the listeners here, you're gonna have loads of top tips across the age range. I suppose trying to get a little bit of insight into your knowledge and experience and taking everything you've learned from your journey so far, what advice would you perhaps give to your younger self to prepare them for stepping into the world of coaching or even teaching for the first time?

[Ben]

I think the biggest thing for me is don't be in a rush. It's quite easy to see qualifications as currency in football and they are because they help you progress. But I'm a firm believer that real development happens on the pitch every week. So when you're coaching your players is where you will be developing. Qualifications are important, they open doors, but they're only a small part of your journey. I'd argue that the learning and the time you invest in that learning is where you will really develop. So kind of more the informal approaches. So being on the pitch and reflecting on it or jumping onto England football learning and reading an article or listening to a podcast, that's probably where you're gonna get some of your kind of little light bulb moments that you're gonna go, oh, I'm gonna use that next time I'm on the pitch, my players are next time I'm planning a session.

[Jamie]

Yeah. Cheers for the plug there. Like that's, it's a really good idea. And, and yeah, you're right. I know people want to jump qualifications, qualification, but there's a lot of learning that we can take place before that will help you on your journey. So definitely look out for our resources that can do that. There's so many from, you know, check out YouTube, checking out our website, these podcasts, you know, they're all there to help people develop in different areas and help them on their journey. What would you say then is the best piece of advice you've ever received in your journey so far?

[Ben]

I was fortunate enough to work for the Football Association full-time as an FA Skills Coach for five years. And as part of our induction, we spent a lot of time working with staff who work on national courses. And I came across a gentleman called Murphy Roberts, who does a lot of work kind of in the social corner. And he kind of threw out a quote that has stuck with me ever since then. And it was, the only person's behaviour you can control is your own. It just, all of a sudden I was thinking right those sessions when I'm in schools and I'm and I'm trying to control 30 kids and I'm trying to control is that word that I'm using all the time and they have to comply with my standards and expectations. You can't actually do that, you can't control people. Human interactions are too complex for that to happen. And it changed my perception and got me thinking, right, well, what does this look like? How do we actually influence young people when we're working with them? Because they're all going to come with a multitude of different experiences and different understanding of what behaviour is and what it looks like and what's acceptable and what's not. So it kind of got me thinking like right I can control me and if I can control me well enough then hopefully I can influence others. So that's kind of one of the best piece of advice I've ever received was that and it stuck with me. It's still something that I use to this day.

[Jamie]

Thanks for sharing that. That's a really, really good point. Really, really good point. What would you say, I mean, I don't know what you're going to say to top that because that's a really good piece of advice, But what advice could you also give to help coaches make a positive impact on their players' journey? The listeners that are tuning in at the moment, what can you give them to help them make a positive impact?

[Ben]

We have to have in the front of our mind, regardless of the environments that we're working in, that they're people before they're players. If we get that right, we'll be more effectively able to support their development. If we get that at the forefront of our thinking that they're people and then they're footballers, players, we'll get it right because, again, I'm going quite quote heavy here, but nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care. So I think if we get that, the relationship right and the environment right with our youngest players, they'll flourish because we'll hook them and they'll want to be there and we'll get that motivation and that autonomy from them.

[Jamie]

Fantastic, fantastic stuff. We're only like 15-20 minutes into this podcast and it is full of great advice already. Brilliant stuff. Now, Ben, as we said at the top of the show, we've got you in today to talk about behaviour and being able to keep players engaged. And you've told us that you've got extensive experience coaching in the foundation phase or primary age players but you have coached a range of ages during your journey so to start based on your experiences so far can you give us an insight into what behaviour may look like through the age groups?

[Ben]

It's dependent on the environment so baby will manifest itself in different ways depending on this. So as an example in the talent pathway you might have young people or teenagers who are more focused on football due to the nature of their inner talent environment. In grassroots you're probably going to see a greater mix of motivations for wanting to be involved in the game. So some young people will turn up because their friends are there, some will turn up because they want or aspire to be in the talent pathways And some will be there because their parents want them to be there, that parental kind of, not, I don't want to say pressure, but the parental influence of, we want you to go play football. That makes, for me, this is where it becomes hard to engage a group of players, especially if they've all got a different mix of motivations for being there. Will you still see behaviour issues within the talent pathway? Of course you will. They're young people, as they are in grassroots, and they're navigating their way through the world and trying to figure out around what behaviour looks like, how we behave with people, how we communicate. And we have to be comfortable as coaches that all the young people, and even adults at times, that we will coach, will have behaviour blips. And they'll have moments where their behaviour might not be desirable in your environment but that happens with those adults it's just us as human beings we will have moments where our behaviour doesn't kind of comply with what we normally expect of ourselves or what the environment expects. It's about being able to go, right, that's happened, but now how do we move forward with that and what does that look like?

[Jamie]

I suppose this depends on the individuals that you're probably coaching, but How often do you tend to witness poor or negative behaviour when coaching? Does it happen in most sessions? I'm trying to think of like if anyone's listening who's maybe not coached session yet, they're about to get into coaching, to help them maybe understand what might happen. Is it a regular occurrence that there's bad behaviour being witnessed there at all?

[Ben]

I think, and this is just through my experience, most kind of poor behaviour or behaviour that we see within sessions is the majority of the time due to a lack of engagement. And something I always ask myself if some kind of undesirable or poor behaviour occurs is, Is it me? Is it me as a coach? Am I not been engaging enough with the players? Is it the session itself or is it the games that I'm using? And this allows me to identify root cause and go, right, I can look in. So internally, is it me first? Because I think sometimes it's quite easy to go, we're seeing a lot of poor behaviour or lack of engagement. Actually, it's the player's fault. Well, it might be me, it might be how I'm presenting the session. It might be how I'm behaving, how I'm acting. So I've got to look in and go, right, is it me? And then I've got to go, right, is it what I've planned? Is it causing a lack of engagement, which is then leading to this happening. And I'll give an example of this. So if we're going to use sessions or practices or games that include kind of lines and waiting to have a turn, especially with younger players, we're then going to induce boredom for some of them because they won't be able to stay engaged with that for a long period of time. And that's when you might see some kind of, I wouldn't say it's not bad or poor behaviour, it's probably just a lack of engagement and trying to find something to do with that time because they're not actually doing what they want to do, which is play football or be involved within the session. And I'd always challenge coaches and I'd ask them to think about this. What constitutes poor behaviour or a lack of engagement? Because for me, we look at behaviour and I'm sure a lot of coaches out there will agree a lot of the behaviour they will see in their sessions will be what I call low level disruption. So maybe talking when someone else is talking or bouncing a ball when the coach is talking. Just little examples that I've experienced. But that's real low level disruption because nobody's health and safety is being kind of compromised. There's no kind of bullying going on. It's just that's how they're engaging at that minute in time. And then we've got to think about, right, if there is safety concerns or kind of bullying concerns, kind of high level disruption concerns, then we've got to step in and we might have to support that immediately. Low level disruption is probably something we can probably give them a little bit more leeway and go, right, how can we support you to understand what isn't acceptable within this environment? But then again, it comes back to that, if I'm stood there talking to the players for five minutes, I'm going to lose interest, I'm going to lose engagement. So I've got to expect as a coach that these things are going to start creeping in.

[Jamie]

Do you think managing poor behaviour, do you think it's something coaches should plan for and if so what top tips can you give them to help them do that?

[Ben]

I think planning for it is very difficult because of the unpredictable nature of human beings and you don't know what's going to be brought into your session on that evening or that Saturday morning or whenever it is, you don't know what kind of frame of mind or state of mind you're going to turn up in and the players themselves. It's very hard to plan for. I think first and foremost, and I've mentioned this, it's about getting the environment right. It's about setting the environment up. So then hopefully then you mitigate kind of any lack of engagement or poor behaviour. And something that I would implore and ask coaches to consider is, come up with expectations that you and your players buy into. But it's a two-way process. It's not just, I expect this of you, but I can behave like this. It's not, this is how we behave. This is our environment. These are our values and support them to understand where they sit and fit. And, and that might take time because you might have to do a little bit of work around if you come up with shared values. Well, what does that look like? Do they understand what it looks like? Do they understand where it comes into kind of the environment? And with that, it's not about kind of planning for poor behaviour, it's probably planning for strategies in case you experience poor behaviour or lack of engagement. So what strategies are you gonna come up with? What you can plan for though is engagement, I'd argue. So you can plan for your session to be engaging. So for me, that's using games and practices that are fast-paced, that are quite intense at times, and getting them to think quite a lot. So they have to be focused on the practice rather than focused on what's going on outside of the practice. Competitive, a big part of engaging young players because I'm a big believer we will never lose competition within football. It's there, it's embedded, young players want to compete, so let's let them compete but let's do so in a safe environment. And game realism because, and I'm sure coaches will agree with this one of the biggest questions is that they'll get at the start of training is can we play a game and why do the young players want to play a game well because that's what's exciting that's football for them playing a game is football now I'm not imploring that we just do an hour of just playing a game and just let the game do everything for us because that had mechels us coaches redundant. It's going right, how do we make our practices as game realistic as possible? And where do we lose a little bit of game realism and why? And then going through some strategies. So something that I've come across is, and it's kind of a method that has been shared with me in various different formats, but UK coaching have got a framework, a gentleman called Paul Dix, who does quite a lot with education and behaviour management and education. And again, Murphy Roberts, these are these kind of influences I've taken from them. And it's a framework that they've kind of amalgamated and put together. But I think the key thing is, if we're going through a process for coaches, the strategy, it's first and foremost, let's focus on positives. Let's not go straight in with the negatives and go, you're doing this wrong, or that's not acceptable, it's right. Let's focus on positives first. Because people want to be noticed. They want to know that they're doing something well. So let's go in and go, right, can we notice positives? And if we do see poor behaviour or lack of engagement, can we notice positives that might be within the vicinity? So for example, if a group of players there aren't on task, but a group of players here right next to them are, go focus on the players that are on task because then the players who aren't on task are looking across going, well why are they getting the attention and where not? Well, they're doing the right thing and that's where I'm going to focus. One that's quite hard and I've grappled with this and I've had to kind of, sometimes you want to influence things but something I call it or I've been privy to as a tactical ignore, don't give them the attention, unless it's health and safety, like I mentioned before, or a bullying issue, anything that compromises safety or welfare, then you have to intervene straight away. But If it's just low level disruption, tactically no. If that doesn't work, we can step in and kind of a nonverbal approach. So that might be your body language, your facial expressions and sometimes just making eye contact with an individual can deter just so they know that you have clocked what they're doing and you can see it. Next bit is delay confrontation. We don't want confrontation because that's when we get into a point where it's going, we do not want a backwards and forwards and a confrontation type approach. But I think this is really interesting now and this is probably sometimes where I fell down earlier in my coaching career, it was my way or the highway, I didn't give choice. And I think that's really crucial in trying to influence and support people to change behaviour is you have to give choices. But then with choices, there has to come consequences. So it's right, I'm going to give you an opportunity to improve or show me something different. If you can't, then unfortunately, this might have to happen. Now, those consequences might link back to your expectations that you've come up with the players or your club values. And it might be that if you can't behave in a way that we expect in this environment, then something I've used is, at the consequences, you might have to go press the reset button. So it's just a metaphorical reset button for young players, but it's just a go and have two minutes, have a drink and then come back. So it gives them that two minute reflection time, that two minute kind of period where they can go away, think about it, get away from that environment or that situation that they're in, and then they could come back. But then I think it's really important to have closure because anything that continues to roll on and on, it starts to fracture the relationship you'll have with your players. There's got to be closure, there's got to be a line drawn in the sand. So, for example, if a player has displayed negative behaviours at a training session, then the next training session the first thing you say to them is, oh we're not going to see what we saw last week are we? Straight away you've brought it back up, you've not drawn a line in it, it's gone, it's been dealt with, it's gone now, we move on. And I think that's quite a strong, powerful tool to use with young people to know that actually that's been dealt with. It's gone now. We've drawn a line in it. We don't want to hang on to it. Let's move forward.

[Jamie]

Now I like that. Like it's a fresh start, isn't it? It's a different day, different session and we move on. Really, really good method there to be fair and a really good tool for coaches to be able to use. I'm going to ask and I think I know what the answer is going to be because we've alluded to it a little bit a bit earlier but another almost like method to use I suppose is coaches own behaviour. So is it important for the coaches to demonstrate good behaviour themselves and to be a good role model for the players to be able to influence players' behaviour themselves?

[Ben]

Yeah, I think this is. It's crucial. Young people will conform and they'll copy behaviours. They will copy behaviours from the environment and from individuals and role models. And as a coach, we are role models, we're in a position of trust with young players and they look up to us. So if we display negative behaviours in training and games, we subconsciously imply to players and young people that that's acceptable. That's an acceptable way to behave in this environment. And an example is if I was to take a game this weekend and all of a sudden I started shouting at the official on the pitch, so the referee, then all of a sudden what I've done is I've given my players the green light to copy that behaviour. And I've seen it happen, I've seen it happen in grassroots and I've seen it happen in the talent pathway. If someone kind of questions the referee's judgment or anything like that, then all of a sudden you could give green light for the players to do that and be able to do that. So I think it's really important that if you want your players to behave in a certain way, that has to manifest itself through you. An example, more recently, the club that I was fortunate to be involved in, one of our values was family. So that meant everyone worked together and everyone worked for each other. But that wasn't just the players, that was the coaches as well. So for example, at the end of training, it's right, we need to collect the equipment. It's quite easy sometimes for coaches to go, right, players go get the equipment and bring it in. No, no, I'm not excluded as a coach from picking up the cones. Just because I'm a coach, I'm still part of this club, part of this group and I have to adhere to the values as well. So my behaviours are, I'm going to go pick it up. But it's one of them where if we get that across to our young players that look just because I'm the coach doesn't mean I don't have to do these things like I'll pick your litter up off the pitch or anything like that. Then that implies to them that they don't have to do it. So we have to live and die by those values and those behaviours.

[Jamie]

So you just said that is really important to display good behaviours because it's going to be mirrored by the players. Just kind of following up on that, football can, and we all know it can be an emotional game. So do you have any advice to help coaches keep their own behaviour in check, especially on a matchday.

[Ben]

I think one of the biggest things here is because it's quite emotional, as you alluded to, it's quite easy to get involved and attached and emotionally want to be in there. I think we've just got to, as coaches, and this is something that I had to do in my early career as a coach was just take a step back, take a step back and observe and even if that means something that really helped me was kind of like building myself a little technical area, right, you are not allowed out of this technical area, this is your technical area, you must stay in here just because then I can observe and notice more about what's going on and I can see, because it's very hard as a coach to be able to see things if you're within the game or the session. So for example, if I don't take that step back and I've got a session on that's going in all directions and I'm stuck in the middle of it, it's really difficult for me to notice things because there's too much going on around me and I might miss things. So it's really crucial. And I think something that I'd imply coaches here to do is, and this is scary, and it's a little bit cringe-worthy when you listen to it back is, but just voice record yourself. If you've got a smartphone, Take your earphones or your airpods, just make sure the players know that you're not listening to any podcasts or music as they're playing the game. Just so you're not implying that it's all right for them to turn up with their airpods or their earphones in. But just record yourself, use the microphone. And one of the best ones I've seen is the plug-in headphones. Plug it into your phone, set a voice recording going, and use a bulldog clip to just clip it to your lapel there with the microphone so you don't have to have the earphones in and it just catches everything you say and then be brave and listen to it back because you'll soon notice and you'll you'll sit there cringing and go why did I say that oh I'm not sure that message was displayed in the right way. I shouldn't have said that. All right, and it's just a real good reflection tool to help keep your behaviour in check. But there's all kinds of strategies you could use. One of the best ones I've seen is, and I'm not sure how well this would work nowadays, now we've gone contactless, but having coins in your pocket. And during a game, if you want to have an interaction with a player or an intervention, or you want to ask the referee a question, you lose a coin. And once your coins are gone, that's it. Your interactions have gone, your interventions have gone. So it makes you really think about what to say, when to say it, when do you need to get this message across, how do you need to do it? And it just, I mean, you could do it, it doesn't have to be coins. It could be whatever you wanted, 10 pieces of Lego or I don't know. I'm just like, it could be whatever you wish, but it just helps you keep that in check and go, right, when do I need to intervene? When do I need to say something? When do I need to ask a question? Just strategies that coaches could potentially use.

[Jamie]

That's a really creative idea. I've never thought of that, but yeah, it definitely gets people to kind of sit back, reflect and go, is it needed for me to intervene here? Like that's a really, really good creative idea that we've touched on it a little bit, but how useful is having a code of conduct in helping to prevent any issues to begin with? And do you maybe have just a few short top tips that can help coaches maybe create one if they haven't got one already?

[Ben]

I think it's really important having, I call them expectations. I know clubs will have their own code of conducts. And one of the biggest questions I was asked here is how do you ensure that that is a data? And how do you refer to it? Do the players understand it? Or is it just, does it just become another piece of paper that they sign at the beginning of the season and then get stored and never kind of reverted back to. Whereas I think if you will have a code of conduct as a club, which is brilliant, but then how does then that transfer to your players and their expectations? So something really simple that I used to use in terms of expectations that I developed with players, One of the most kind of memorable and easy ones that I ever kind of developed was with a group of players, by the way, it wasn't me, was we have three expectations. Number one is safety. Number two is we're here to learn and number three, we respect everyone. And that was just three simple things. And the players refer back to it. Is that safe? Are we learning? And is that respectful? Those three headlines can constitute so many different things and you could take them off in different directions. But it was just really easy for the players to kind of hang on to three kind of words that they could hang on to and be able to refer back to if needed. And I think with that, I think coaches have to be brave enough to say to their players, what are our expectations and getting them to come up with it with you as a coach, because I can guarantee what they will come up with will be exactly the same as what you would like to see. It might just be worded differently because they might not have the terminology that you have as an adult yet but they'll be able to tell you exactly what that behaviour looks like. But also linking into the club-wide, as I mentioned before, I've been fortunate to be involved at a club where we had club values. That was our kind of expectations. This is how we behave at this football club. This is what it means to be here. This is how we act. This is how we put ourselves forward. And it's just, again, that was five buzzwords, which were really easy for the players to remember. But again, I think it has to be reinforced because it's easy to come up with a list of expectations or some buzzwords that you're going to use and then never refer back to them. It has to be something that's constantly kind of used in your session. So the values one for me was I just, I printed it out once we decided on it, I'd laminated it and it was just stuck to my tactics or whiteboard for every session. So the players were constantly getting that, even though we didn't have to kind of go through it every session and say, what does this mean? We didn't have to do that because it was there in front of them. And then they start to take ownership of these are how we behave, these are our values.

[Jamie]

Yeah, really important there just to make sure that they're visible, you know, and that way they're going to make an impact, aren't they? Like you just naturally, it's there. You're seeing it all the time rather than it just being a document that's kind of tucked away and then just brought out when maybe poor behaviour occurs. Now we're talking a lot about obviously poor player behaviour, but don't want to pin it on them if that makes sense. Because coaches might get frustrated that when players are acting out or don't listen, behave poorly, whatever it may be, but there are reasons that they're behaving that way. It's not their fault. So with that in mind, just to delve a little bit deeper into that. In your opinion, what is maybe one of the most common reasons players have displayed poor behaviour in your experience and how have you handled that situation?

[Ben]

This could be due to kind of several different reasons. And we have to think again, and I'm coming back to the quote that I used at the start, what can we and can't we control? So for example, is the lack of engagement or the behaviour that they're displaying, is it due to internal factors? So my session, the environment I've created, or is it down to external factors? So for example, things that might have happened at home or at school, things that are out of our control now and things that are out of our influence potentially. So it's about right, if that's the case, if they're turning up to the session with something that's happened, for example, they've had an argument with the best friend at school and that's now affected their frame of mind and they're coming into your session and they know that that best friend is going to be there as well, there's potential for some kind of animosity or some kind of negative behaviours to manifest themselves in your session. I think it's really crucial here around recognising the psychological state of the players as they come into training. So something I'm really big on is making sure that I greet players, because that gives me a bit of an inkling around where are they at right now? Are they okay? Do they look a little bit disengaged? Are they a little bit angry or frustrated? But also something I've found works really well is like an emoji mood board. So having like, and the players, this is where this is where it has to be kind of anonymous for me because we don't want players to write the names underneath an emoji. It's just like a tally chart, who's coming in smiley face, who's coming in a little bit frustrated, who's coming in sad face and the players there and I've seen it work where they start being really honest and just tell each other. But the key thing there as a coach is to be clever and recognize, put yourself in a position where you can see who's tallying. And then you make a mental note of, Oh, I've seen that person over there. It's sad face today. Might have to do that. They had a good day. Like don't necessarily go in and go, why are you sad? Just how's your day been? And do a little bit of digging. And if you've got that relationship and that environment that you've created with the players, then hopefully you'll be able to glean something from that. And then that can influence how you interact with them and how you behave with them in that session, that evening, just from that first point of figuring out what might have gone on or even if they don't tell you necessarily about an argument with a friend at school, going back to that example, you might be able to pick up on some little clues that actually they're a little bit frustrated. So it might be then around, right, let's get them engaged within this session. How am I going to engage them? So that might be, might be giving them a specific role within a practice, or it might be just letting them get on with it depending on that individual. Because like I mentioned before, human interactions are complex and we all have our own different personalities. So what works for one person in terms of influencing behaviour will not necessarily work for another person. We have to be really clever around how we interact with those individuals.

[Jamie]

Yeah, and that's a good takeaway in terms of just the importance on really knowing and understanding individuals and especially like almost like when they first arrive in, yeah, that it's a great idea to be able to get a bit of a tally chart of how they're feeling and be able to adapt your plans a little bit to hopefully help them engage and enjoy themselves a bit more. This one's just a little bit of a thought, but can potentially having different rules in different environments cause confusion and leads to kids perhaps behaving poorly at training at all?

[Ben]

Key thing here is, and this is kind of like where we've got to understand that young people especially, they will have expectations placed on them from so many different environments that sometimes their head will be swimming about what is and isn't acceptable here and there. And because of the variety of that, we've got to think about the individual. So if we've got a young person at a football session, then we will have a social construct. So think of it as a square. So as I explained, think of it as a square. So that's our social construct. This is our values. This is how this, our expectations, how we behave. That's when they're in your football session. But then when they go to school the next day, they'll have another box or another square and it might overlap with yours. It might overlap heavily. It might overlap just in the corner and you might have a little bit that's the same. There'll be overlaps everywhere. But then when they go home, there'll be another box. That will now overlap somewhere along those lines. So what you'll end up having is lots of different environments will give them lots of different expectations, which are helping build them and develop them socially, and help them understand what behaviour looks like in different contexts and different environments and different situations. And I think for us in football, we've got again, come back to what can we control? We can control our construct, our social environment. So we've got to be so consistent in that as coaches to go, this is our expectations, this is how we behave in this environment. Because then the players will go, right, I'm in football now, I know what, I'm not gonna bring in some of the behaviours that I might be allowed to display in other environments. This is how I behave here, this is how I understand this is what it looks like at football. And hopefully that then can have a positive influence on different environments and that's kind of the power of sport I think and the power of football specifically is we can have such a big influence on young people personally and help them understand what it is like to be involved in different situations Because we will have, this is from my teaching background, I've worked in further education, and I've worked with young people who have been studying a vocational qualification, but have also been kind of resitting their GCSEs at the same time. And it's been one of them where, well, they can't engage in maths and English, or we see poor behaviours in maths and English. And my thing back is, well, I don't see that in vocational because this is where they're engaged. This is where they're, that's what we've got to figure out what hooks them, what is their motivations and what do they want to do and get better at. And then we can help them and influence them in other areas as well by discussing the importance of what it looks like.

[Jamie]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, everybody has different motivations and it's just like everybody learns differently, and it's just understanding what it is that they need and trying to meet that. Thinking of another reason why players might demonstrate poor behaviour or disengage with sessions is potentially maybe attention spans can be short perhaps, so they might be a bit of a limit as to how much information can be digested at one time for instance. So do you have any advice to help coaches to keep their communication clear and concise at all?

[Ben]

I think it's that one rare around because we've all seen this and the way that kind of technology is moving and society has progressed over the last couple of years, everything is a lot more readily available now. So what we tend to see with younger people now is that they want information fast. They want it there. They want it kind of delivered as quick as possible so they can get on with it. And that's where we've got those coaches to be going, right, how now do we structure our interventions within our sessions? And when you ask early about planning for behaviour, I do think we can plan for interventions and we can say, right, I'm now going to do a 30-second group intervention. But you've got to be really strict with yourself on that. But you've got to know what you want to get out in that 30 seconds and be really concise to the point. And then Probably a lot of the learning and development will then happen with, as that session's going on, working with individuals is crucial. And this is where we'll be able to develop kind of relationships as well with young players around if we've got a group, what will tend to happen is if we do an intervention with them, Some of them will be confident enough to kind of speak up or give ideas and opinions. Others will be happy enough just to sit back and listen. But then we don't fully get, do they understand where we're going with this? Whereas that individual approach can help you with that. And I go back to learning again. It can help us with that learning process. How are they progressing? Are they developing this? Can I see it? Can they tell me what we're doing? Do they understand it? So I think that that's real crucial here around kind of trying to hook them, but also involving them. So for me, that attention, you mentioned about an attention span and engagement levels. If we're going to do something on a tactics board, involve them in the process. Don't just be the coach who's moving the mic, get them to do it, get them to engage, but I'll get them to come up with ideas. Give them that ownership, and I don't think we've touched on it yet, but ownership can be so powerful in engagement and autonomy and managing people to regulate their own behaviours because they feel like they're part of the process. One of the best kind of ideas that I've seen, and this was from being a coach developer and going out and watching a coach who was completing the old level two, now the UEFA C licence, was They'd asked all the parents' permission for pictures, and they'd taken a picture of their players in their club kit. They'd printed them all, laminated them, and they all had their own magnet on the whiteboard, on the tactics board. So then the kids really engaged with it, because then they could put themselves in the practice and go, right, if this happens, I would move here. And you just saw the engagement levels fly through the roof because just because their picture was on there and it was them and they could then go right I'm doing this I'm going to do this and move here. Just a real clever way to hook and engage young people is to involve them in the process.

[Jamie]

Yeah and that leads kind of nicely on because, yeah, you know what I'm saying, ownership is really important. Obviously, it kind of depends what level of ownership maybe you give players. It looks differently at different ages. So do you have any quick top tips or just suggestions that maybe people could use? Of course, they're going to have to adapt them to their own players' needs, but maybe at different ages, like what player ownership could look like to try and help them get a bit more engaged in the session?

[Ben]

I think ownership is a real powerful tool. It's something that As coaches, if we've only got that 60 minutes on a Thursday evening, which we know from coaching that actually that 60 minutes very quickly becomes 50 minutes because of the changeover on the pitch times and then you've got to get set up. I think if we can give them that ownership, it really can help our sessions to flow and it can also involve them in the process. But we have to manage ownership. If we just went in tomorrow with a group we've never met before and go, right, go set this up, then it'd probably be chaos if we give them too much and they're not used to it. We've got to know that the players can take that ownership on board. So it's about knowing your players, understanding them as individuals, who can take that leadership role around ownership, who might need a little bit more support as to what ownership looks like. But I think I personally think you can give ownership at all ages, it's just how it's put across. So for example I've been fortunate to work in schools and I've worked with a group of 30 young people, not all who wanted to play football, but they have to do national curriculum PE and football was the topic that they were covering. And I've worked with six and seven year olds who, when you ask them to go set up two triangles with six cones, they can do that. And again, it's a little bit of cross-curricular stuff, linking it back into maths and the national curriculum itself, but they can do that because a triangle is an easy shape to decipher and set up for a young person. And will they get it wrong? Yes. So you want the two triangles set up far enough apart for them to play a game where they can get into their opponent's triangle without getting caught, without getting the ball stolen. And what will probably happen is you'll get some groups who will set the triangles up right next to each other. So there's no space to do that. But then that's coaching, that's managing the process and going, right, what's the problem? Well, it's too easy or I haven't got enough space, right? So what are you going to do? We're going to move this triangle over here. Right? They go, That's it. That's the process. And next time they do it, they'll set it up further apart because they've tried it, it's not worked. And they've figured it out. And we've asked questions to do rather than just saying, well, your triangles are too close together. Move and move them. We're now not involving them in the process. We're just telling them what to do. That's crucial, that giving ownership, but even something as simple as kind of like little responsibilities, like tonight, Ben, you're gonna collect the bibs at the end of training. Jamie, you're in charge of the football bag. You need to make sure that everyone puts the footballs in the football bag. We have 12 footballs. Can we please make sure they all go in there? Again, giving them that responsibility. And then they've got socially now, they have to work with their teammates and peers and solve that problem. And there will be little bits of social conflict in there, but that's all right because that's how young people learn how to handle those types of situations. And I think the key there is helping them understand how they handle that situation, how they behave in that situation and what that looks like. It's really powerful, but just give me a little tasks that then give them that ownership, that responsibility, even if it's setting something up, taking something down, collecting equipment, I think it involves them in the process and they feel like they're part of the process.

[Jamie]

Yeah, I think ownership is a really powerful tool if used correctly with your players. It really, really is. Now, I appreciate I've kept you for quite a while and your answer has been absolutely fantastic, Ben. So time is running tight, but before we move on to the next section, just looking back at everything we've discussed, can you kind of summarize maybe the key takeaways that you want coaches to have from this episode at all?

[Ben]

Yeah, I think the key thing here is, I try to get coaches to reframe poor behaviour as potentially a lack of engagement and thinking about it from that perspective and recognize that that will manifest itself in a lot of different ways and the majority of kind of the lack of engagement or poor behaviour you will see your sessions will be low-level behaviour. It will be not on task, it will be bouncing a ball when you're talking which is frustrating. We've all been there, I get it, or it will be talking when you're talking. It'll be low level things, things that necessarily aren't going to compromise, kind of like I said before, health and safety. But I think the key advice here is develop strategies which allow you to manage and influence behaviour. And remember, you can't control it. You can influence it, but you cannot control it. If you try control it, that's when people will push against it because they don't want to be kind of like boxed in and I must do this, I must do that. Give them that little bit of, and as long as you can manage it, I think giving them that little bit of leeway at times is important because that's how we develop our personality and that's how we develop to learn what's right and what's wrong. Create a positive, and I mentioned that word autonomous, so they're involved in that learning environment which gives them the ownership, but also with that, understand the players and I think one of the key things, and I don't think we mentioned it earlier, is one of the key bits of advice that I've ever received is, ask the players why. So why are they behaving in that way? Because then all of a sudden you reframe and flip the whole conversation and they've got to think about it, they've got to reflect in the moment. But then what you're doing is, quite subconsciously, you're separating the behaviour from the person. And I think that's a real key tip for coaches. It's not the person. If we start making it personal, and it's about the person, rather than it's about the behaviour you're displaying, not you, it's not you, it's just what you're displaying at this minute in time that's causing us a little bit of to have this conversation or causing us a problem within the session. That's really crucial because then I think people will start to develop relationships where you go, right, it's not personal, it's not against me, the coach isn't always getting at me because I'm doing this and I'm doing that, it's not the coach is trying to help me develop my behaviour rather than it just being about me. And show your sessions are engaging, provide the players with their needs and wants mentioned earlier, they want to play football. How can we give them that? And how can we help them learn at the same time?

[Jamie]

Fantastic. Really strong points there for everybody to take away. Now we're talking about engaging players. This little section we've got here is to engage your coaches really. So we're just wondering, could you set our listeners a challenge at all based on managing behaviour and engagement levels that we can post on to our community platform and just kind of get all the coaches just chatting amongst themselves seeing how it went, what they could do next time, et cetera. So do you have a challenge at all for everybody listening today?

[Ben]

Yeah, I think the next time you have the opportunity to do it, work with your players to develop what your expectations are in your environment, in your club, in your age group, and even better, if you could get the club involved and multiple coaches from multiple age groups going, right, well, what does it mean to be a Juniors FC player? What does that look like when we're in our environment? I think that's a key one for me. Start that process, but then get the players to buy into it. Player voice should be at the forefront of what we're thinking about. So making sure that we listen to what the players want, what they're telling us. That's a real crucial thing that I've found personally in the past has worked really well. Giving the players a voice because then they buy into it, then they engage with the process, and then they start to demonstrate engagement because they feel like they're part of it.

[Jamie]

Brilliant. Thank you. Looking forward to getting that on there and then seeing how everybody takes that on. Right. Well, We are coming up to the end of the show now, Ben, but it does mean it's time for our Swift session feature. We've got enough time just to squeeze this in. It is where we give our guests another 30 second challenge to come up with a session idea. It can be based on any theme and it can even be your favourite session to deliver. So are you up for your final challenge Ben?

[Ben]

Yes, let's do it.

[Jamie]

Awesome, so I'll set the music up and once the music begins you've got 30 seconds to explain your session idea. So I will press play now.

[Ben]

The bibs or the balls, whatever equipment you want to use without getting tagged. If they get tagged, they have to go to jail, but their teammates can come and high five them to free them and bring them back. So it's kind of one of those games where it's thinking about physical development, but also then introduce footballs, introduce dribbling, introduce passing. Real kind of good social game to get the players kind of thinking.

[Jamie]

Brilliant, brilliant. That sounds like a really good session. Just went over, but we'll let you have that one. Do you have anything else to add in that we didn't manage to squeeze in in that 30 seconds?

[Ben]

I think with that game in particular, we talk about kind of engagement and managing behaviour because of the intensity of the game and the social elements of it that occur, you will have to manage bits of behaviour because there'll be bits around, did it get in the base? Well, did they, didn't they? You've got to solve that problem and you have to work with players individually then. But it's also a real good one to have that high intensity type environment, but also that social element of it. And you can start to relay that back. And in my experience, it's one of the sessions that regardless of what environment you're coaching in, whether that's with younger players, and I've played that with adult players, and I'm not kind of over-egging this, they begged to play it again. Can we play that again? Because it's fun and it's engaging, and it's what they want to do. They want to have fun, they want to be engaged.

[Jamie]

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Well, that is all we have time for today, but thank you very much for your time, Ben. That has been great to listen to. You did so many top tips. I can't believe how much we've actually got through in this last hour. It's been fantastic. So thank you very much. Hopefully you've enjoyed being on Coachcast as well.

[Ben]

Yeah, no, thank you. No, real privilege to be asked to come on and obviously discuss with yourself and yeah, hopefully some ideas coaches can take away and use in their context and yeah, thank you.

[Jamie]

Great. Well, thank you very much for your time, sharing your story and your coaching advice. Thank you very much. Right, well that is all we have time for today, but don't forget to check out the episode description for the transcription of this episode and for all the links to our platforms. There you'll be able to click through to the England Football Community, which 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. We'll be back soon with another episode of Coachcast, so if you haven't already, hit subscribe to make sure you don't miss out. From all of us at England Football Learning, Thanks for listening.