With football losing out to the bad weather and little or no news around last week, I thought I would take this opportunity to update you on my progress towards achieving my FA Level 2 badge.

 

With much excitement last week, I attended a five-day coaching course at the Lancashire FA headquarters in Leyland. The last time I was at the headquarters was to appeal against a six-match ban and £60 fine, but that's another story!

The progression from a Level 1 up to Level 2 coach requires me to place a greater emphasis on ensuring that players understand the skills that they are developing, whilst playing the game. This is not just the obvious physical and technical skills like running, passing and dribbling, but also the social and psychological skills like movement into space, decision-making and consistent communication. My aim is to progress as high up the FA coaching badge ladder as possible, hopefully this can be achieved whilst I am still with Eccleston and Heskin FC.

My week involved learning how to apply specific techniques and skills in a match situation. The emphasis of the week was on coaching rather than just  running through complex drills. This meant playing football and then identifying areas of coaching whilst under constant assessment from two larger than life coaches (Glen Keeley being my mentor). Believe me they made sure that we all got the message when things went wrong. Initially during the week I felt completely out of my depth as a long term goalkeeper meant that my football skills were not as sharp as others in the group, particularly those from semi-pro clubs. However the group of lads I was with made sure that my limited footballing skills did not matter, however the coaches made sure that I gave them plenty to coach to!

This was a great busman's holiday and work was well forgotten until today that is!

The week ended with the two coaches demanding that the two groups they mentored played against each other. These games ensured that no prisoners were taken and your's truly managed to score, however my enjoyment was short-lived as I managed to incur the wrath of both coaches as I broke all the golden rules scoring whilst playing at right back. Great goal though, especially as it was scored against a RN*. (Chris Connaughton,  if you are reading this, I am still living the moment mate)

The next four months will see me attend a further five days at the county ground with  two being assessed by external FA examiners. I also need to do a further 20 hours of volunteer work with other teams. I will therefore be working at Christ Church Charnock Richard, the under 9's team at Eccleston (my thanks to Gary Wilkinson for arranging this) and local teams in Liverpool. I look forward now to passing on all my new knowledge to those who want to learn.

*RN = Red Noser