Stage 1 Overview-Part 2

Going into schools was quite an experience.To be honest, it was harder than I had expected. In my previous coaching experience, I mainly dealt with about 10 kids at a time, would have plenty of space, equipment and assistance from other coaches. Therefore when I was put into a very different coaching environment in the schools, I had to adapt and quickly.

The primary school sessions definitely required the most effort. Especially when working with the Year 3s at Hungerford Primary School. These kids had bags and bags of energy, I should have found out what they had for breakfast. At the start of each session they would come sprinting over to us from their classroom, always following behind their teacher. I have to tell you about this one time when the teacher fell over flat on his face as he ran out, me and my coaching partner tried and failed to control our hysterical laughter. Thankfully the teacher took it well and would continue to joke about it in the following weeks.

Often after these sessions I would have lost my voice, because of the constant communication with the youngsters. Partly this was to make sure everyone knew what they were doing, to ensure there was some structure to the session and it wasn’t just like 30 monkeys going berserk on a playground. However most of the communication was to keep encouraging the little ones, not just when they would do a good bit of skill, but more so when they would show good behaviour and sportsmanship, such as saying well done to each other at the end of a game.

When coaching primary school kids, it’s as much about behaviour management as football coaching. We got better and better with this week on week, we would always be trying to find new ways to control the behaviour. One idea that worked really well was mark out a ‘meeting zone’at the edge of the pitch. We would start the session in the ‘meeting zone’,and recap the rules, such as when I am talking no one else is talking, and if we behave badly on the pitch we have to return to the meeting zone to talk about our behaviour. This seemed to work most of the time, I often heard cries from them off ‘NO, ANYTHING BUT THE MEETING ZONE’

Despite the hard work, these sessions were very fun and extremely rewarding. At the end of the session when the kids all had massive grins on their faces, then you knew you had done a good job. Except for when they lost their little match at the end and then inevitably the game was so unfair and the world was against them, bless em.

Special mention has to go to my coaching partner Michael. Who didn’t have any coaching experience before the programme but you wouldn’t have guessed it after a couple of weeks, growing very quickly in confidence. He always brought so much fun and energy to every session. We loved to arrive nice and early before a session and work on our keepy uppie tekkers. One of the funniest memories we had was getting bundled by about 15 kids each and having to be saved from the teachers, during a lunchtime before a session. Best of luck to you in Uganda mate!!

The secondary school sessions were very different. Because they had better technical ability, we could do more advanced sessions with them, which most of the time worked. As well as having to spend a lot of time encouraging them to pass and play as a team, the main problem we had with the secondary school kids is that all they ever wanted to do was matches. We tried to explain that we were here to try and help them develop as players, rather than just referee matches for them. Sometimes we did have to get strict with them. Overall though we had a good time with them. They loved it when we ran a massive tournament for them on the last week, which was a great opportunity for them to show case their skills.

Another aspect of Stage 1 that I loved was getting introduced to many of the Arsenal In The Community departments, we:

• enjoyed having a disability football taster session (check out the photo below of us trying blind football, you might be able to tell that we struggled)

• helped with kicks tournaments

• had an introduction to the Arsenal Double Club and employability programmes

• helped run half-term double club camps (involving Arsenal inspired classroom lessons as well as fun footy sessions)

• got involved with Junior Gunner events

• had a cooking lesson with the Healthy Eating Project

Stage 1 was brilliantly capped of by a Gappers Christmas party at the Hub, which involved a lot of awfully painful karaoke and lots of chanting (we had a little football chant for everyone on the programme).

I’d be here all day if I mentioned everything we did in Stage 1. So to sum up, Stage 1 was magnificent. I am definitely going to miss being around everyone on the programme and all the kids we had a great time coaching.

Well done if you have read up to here, I promise my posts in Mozambique won’t be as long…

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