Coaching the Coaches

Grassroots coach Andrew Mail believes he reaped the benefits of last week's 'Coaching the Coaches' CPD session.

Workforce Development Manager Nigel Gleghorn delivered the first in a series of workshops for our grassroots volunteers, kicking off with a look at how our coaches could best utilise their coaching time.

All coaches can fall foul over-coaching their players and this session was designed to maximize the effectiveness of a coach's training sessions. With a number of Manchester County FA coaches in attendance, Mail believes the session will have been benefit both to him and his players.

"The event was half theory, half practical and Nigel took us through a couple of collaborative tasks concerning types of intervention," he explained. "One of the tasks required us to discuss a host of hypothetical situations and this was really helpful to get us thinking about our own experiences.

"Later, we moved out to the indoor 3G pitch and watched Nigel deliver a coaching session to a local junior team. We all had copies of his session plan and were asked to keep an eye on the time and record each type of intervention as it happened. What we observed was a first class coaching session with regular short interventions.

"It re-affirmed to me that you don't need to spend a great deal of time addressing players and that short, regular interventions can be more effective for maintaining rhythm and maximising time during a session. We finished by reviewing and evaluating what we'd seen back in the classroom and all left with something to think about on the way home.

"Overall, this was a well delivered session which Nigel made relevent to the attendees of all levels - from L1 through to UEFA B."

Become a coach

Would you like to become a coach? MCFA hosts a number of coaching courses to get you started.

For more information and to book online, click HERE. If you have any other questions, please contact Workforce Development Manager Nigel Gleghorn by clicking HERE.