Bravo Lancashire FA, Bravo!

If you’ve been on Twitter today then you may have noticed the talk about Lancashire FA’s tweeting regards different aspects of the grassroots game, such as coaches conduct, parents conduct and a number of other initiatives which make the grassroots game all the more friendly and young-player orientated.

I’d thoroughly recommend taking a look back at their timeline from this month but if you’re not Twitter-savvy then take a look at the list below which are just some of the ideas and comments they made.

However lowly you rate your ref this weekend shake their hand and invite them back.That way they come back better rather than not at all.

Offside is often contentious in youth football but only to adults who put winning before enjoyment and development.Accept errors occur.

Can we have a Silent Weekend where no parents or coaches shout? If you agree tell us and we’ll promote it county wide. #letthechildrenplay

Parents. If you can’t attend this weekend will you ask your child if they won or whether they enjoyed the game?  #culturechange

Why not appoint 2 or 3 regular parents to welcome opposition parents this weekend & invite them to stand with you?#breakingdownbarriers

One club today excused disrespect to a referee on his failure to see pushes! Still lots of work to do to change outdated attitudes.

Coaches. Bored pushing the trolley in Tesco? Chuck in some sweets for your players to give to their opponents after the weekend game #respect

Just spoken to a girls coach who allows no coaching during the game, trusting the players instead. Could you do that? #whosegameisit

Coaches. Could young players put on brief sessions on your training night? Do they have an input into how your team is selected? #theirgame

How can you empower young people in your club? Player on your committee? Junior committee with CWO observing?  #theirgametheirsay

Will you welcome opposition parents today with a warm brew and stand with them? Youth footie no place for club rivalries #makingfriends

How nice for your kids to give sweets to their opponents after today’s match #changingattitudes

Coaches. Key point for this morning DON’T PLAY THE GAME FOR THEM #letthemplay

If both teams have subs organise a 2v2 or 3v3 so the kids are active, warm and ready to go in when called.

Challenge to all our coaches. Try putting four cones down this weekend and standing inside them. Bet you see more and act more calmly.

Do you have a couple of spare jackets if children getting excessively cold or wet? Be a forward thinking coach and help to prevent neglect.

If opposition adults behave badly, don’t reciprocate.Two wrongs don’t make a right.Show a proper example to impressionable children

Some clubs still tend to fall in behind parochial rivalries and excuse poor behaviour of adults by blaming opposition #dotherightthing

More reports coming in of youth games ruined by appalling adult behaviour last weekend.Ongoing crusade to challenge and change attitudes

One player today bellowing foul language all game on a pitch in a residential area.Is this acceptable? Who should take responsibility?

I think it’s excellent that they’ve taken to Twitter to back up and relay some of the messages that you see many involved with the game talking about and full credit for that.

Football Coaching Session – Switching Play U16s

My U16s have played two games recently and having watched those games I’ve been thinking about how we can improve our ball retention. There were two initial areas which came to mind – one was from throw-ins and the other from the full-back position, this is why I created a PDF summarising my views on how we could improve this (and give it to the players).

Therefore, I decided I’d do some work on this at training tonight. I’d originally planned to have a bit of discussion around this and work through a game-realistic scenario (i.e. keeping possession from a throw-in through actually doing the throw-in, return to feet and then playing across the back four) but I found an interesting session idea on Performance Four Four Two.

This is the session

I usually get 11-12 at training so this was due to work quite well, as it was I had 16 and it was chucking it down it made it a little more difficult to run (Update – I should add that this isn’t a bad thing, great to have more players as hopefully it means sessions are enjoyable!). Anyway, this is some self-reflection from me in terms of how it went.

• I setup as per the video, 4 midfielders, 4 defenders, 2 strikers beyond the defenders and a GK
• Due to the fact I had 16 players in total I had 5 players stood near me on the halfway line, one of who served the ball in each time

I informed the defensive unit that I wanted them to remain close by and defend as if they would normally but I wanted them to work across the pitch as a unit. I informed the midfield four that I wanted them to work the ball across the pitch and specifically, I was looking for the middle two to drop off when a wide player received it. Finally, I instructed the strikers to remain central so as not to deny space to the wide players.

Over the course of the session I rotated players fairly frequently, usually in their groups of four. I had my current normal back four as a unit, my midfield from Sunday as a unit and then four players (one new, one who’s not signed on but trains and one who’s playing elsewhere) as a unit.

I began with Sunday’s midfield playing against Sunday’s back four and I had to work on them re-starting from half-way when they lost possession because gradually they were starting to get closer and closer to the 18 yard box which was making it difficult for the wide players to find any space (and this was on a pitch used for U13/U14s).

What I primarily wanted to work on was my back four, as I’m keen that they’re able to drop off when we’re in possession and move the ball from one side to another. With this in mind, I swapped the midfielders with my defenders (essentially, the movements and flow of the ball are the same in this instance as they are if you’re moving the ball from your right back to left back) and they were a lot better at switching play than the midfield four had been – this I think is because I’d worked with the back four previously during our early training sessions.

I continued to rotate the units around and worked on this for about 20 minutes. Some players were able to quickly pick up what was required in terms of dropping off, some often ended up engaging with the back four which, although match realistic, means that you lose the ability to switch from one side to another.

It wasn’t the best night for it as having players waiting around in the rain (even if I was talking them through what I was looking for) isn’t ideal but I really wanted to spend some time working on this as I believe it’ll help and it’s an important part of keeping the ball.

I talked to the players about why I wanted to work on this, what I’d seen in recent games and said that we’d do further work on this. I top and tailed the session with a game – started with 8v8 pop-up goals and a one-touch finish, ended with 8v8 all in but stressed that I wanted to see them switching play to keep the theme of the session.

Overall? Worked ok, could have been a lot better and having 16 turn up threw me a bit.

Positives: Able to work with back four, given them a pattern to think about and see. Same with midfielders and rest of players.

Negatives: A lot of content to try and get across, which means stopping play and in the rain/cold that’s not very easy to do (and I didn’t try to get lots across due to this).