The Grassroots Football Show

National Exhibition Center Birmingham England May 25th – 27th 2012

Foreword:

As an ex-pat from England and a now proud U.S. Citizen, for the past several years I have wanted to attend the Grassroots Football show to see if the English really do, do it better? An opinion I have never fully subscribed to based on 1 World Cup, no European Championships and no Olympic medals (In soccer) in over a century. What I do know is that there has been many millions of pounds spent on creating and running Professional Academies and Centers of Excellence trying to address these issues and attempting to identify precocious elite youth players even as young as 5 years old. What there has been very little of, at least until the inception of the Grassroots Football show, is an attempt to reach the coaches and players of the non-professional ilk on a national scale. Notwithstanding that the English Football Association has for many years had a Charter Standard for clubs to attain, by meeting certain criteria based on proper organizational practice, sustainability, child protection andquality coaching. Go to this link for more information on the Charter Standard:

Indeed US Soccer has implemented its own version of the Charter Standard with the US Soccer Development Academies which like many of the non-Charter Standard clubs in England has left the rest of us with the feeling of “Hey what about us?”. Enter the Grassroots Football Show.

First Impressions:

Upon entering the exhibition hall immediately one could be forgiven for feeling that you have been somehow transported to any similar type of event hosted by US Youth Soccer or the NSCAA here in the U.S. with one notable exception interactionthere were 9 soccer fields of various sizes (Non full size) all being used all the time. This could possibly be the benefit of hosting an event during a school vacation period. Aside from the 9 fields there were vendors and displays, interactive areas for video games (soccer obviously), fast footwork arenas, soccer obstacle courses and a Football Association theater where classroom presentations, round table panel discussions and interviews took place. To say the whole thing was overwhelming is an understatement.You just didn’t know where to look first or where to focus your attention.

Of the 9 soccer fields 5 were being used for coaching demonstrations and presentations, 1 was being used for referee training and interaction, 1 was being used for a small sided game open to anyone, 1 was being used for a small sided game with a size 1 ball open to teams and 1 was an enclosed field (imagine a tennis court with a net roof over it) being used as a soccer in the streets court. The field perimeters were constructed of various materials from inflatables, board-walls, netting and metal railed fencing. Only the main demonstration arena was set up with bleacher style seating around 3 sides while the rest were standing room only. The fields themselves were made of either sportcourt/hard plastic or carpet like turf.

The Main Event (The Show):

After speaking with the former organizer of the event he explained that the origin of the show was to open the doors of football to give everyone and anyone a glimpse behind the scenes into how football was being run from a coaching and player development standpoint and that the main focus was on educating the volunteer coach dealing with the recreational/grassroots player. More recently he felt that the show had become a little too interactive and the focus was now moving away from an educational theme to a festival style event. Personally I liked the mix of both interactivity and presentations however the new organizers need to address the competing sound systems from each field as the noise levels went from unbearable to at times unintelligible.

Presenters:

The field presenters ranged from former premier league managers, Phil Brown, Les Reed and players, Lee Carsley, Dean Holdsworth and Robbie Savage to Academy coaches, Steven Hart from Manchester City, Mark Meredith from Derby County,and former Academy coach now plying his trade here in the U.S. Tosh Farrell. The classroom presenters were Bill Beswick who should need no introduction due to his many forays to the U. S. and his appearances at our conventions and Nick Levett from the F.A. who is the National Game Development Manager along with many more, skilled but lesser known clinicians.

Demonstrations:

The players in the demonstrations were from all walks of life ranging from U-6 beginning players to Premiership, Championship and League 1 Academy players through to novice coaches plucked straight from the viewing audience. The sessions presented ranged from “The Barcelona 6 seconds – closing down from the front” presented by Phil Brown to “How to run a session for U-6’s” presented by Steven Hart from Manchester City’s Academy. There were presentations on Women’s and Girl’s Football forum and eliminating racism. The quality of play was about what you would expect from the Academy players in terms of technical proficiency, speed of play and game understanding however there was a noticeable difference when the non-Academy players were involved the players were uncoordinated, attention spans were all over the place and the games were disjointed at best.

From a coaching perspective the presenters were, for the most part, on task. Their use of players, space and activities chosen were exceptional. The pictures they painted were excellent and their delivery of information very much mirrored our own guided discovery methodology. I particularly enjoyed the way the presenters layered on the information and never tried to overload the players with it in a way that ends up being confusing to the players. One aspect of the sessions that did differ greatly from our four stage sessions wasthat due to the layering on of the information, even though the activity changed the stage of practice did not. What I mean by that is due to the lack of pressure from an opponent you could quite easily mistake the second and at times third activity for what we would call a warm up stage activity and yet due to the demands of the practice the players did get better at the prescribed task as the session went on. It led me to think about the timing of the introduction of pressure and how we like to introduce it in stage 2 or as we call it the small sided activity and how that can be a detrimental impact on the players ability to master the task. It definitely seemed to be the preferred methodology used by all of the presenters I had the chance to observe.

One notable omission was the severe lack of female participants in fact none of the demonstrations were conducted using female players even though there is supposed to be a big push to get more women and girls involved in the sport. Even the section that was dedicated to women’s and girls’ soccer was almost entirely being used by boys. Whilst there were some very capable female coaches on show they did not get a chance to showcase their abilities on the main demonstration arenas. I was somewhat perturbed about this given the push to promote this particular aspect of the game. Not something I would expect to happen here!

Summary:

In conclusion the event for me was quite refreshing but not for the fact that there was a ton of new ideas but mostly for the fact it seemed very much to me that England is in catch up mode compared to where we are at the grassroots level. Only now are they looking to implement guided discovery into their coaching mantra. Small sided or as they call it short football is once again at the forefront of their grassroots initiative. By which I mean getting organizations to buy into smaller fields with fewer players on a team. The most refreshing thing of all for me, despite what many here in the U.S. currently believe, I can here and now dispel the rumor that “every child (at least boy) is born with a soccer ball at their feet.” Based on this evidence they most assuredly are not!

Additional Information:

For more information about the Grassroots Football Show please visit: