Method to the Madness
Children smiling and playing football in a sports hall.
One thing that is very noticeable about our sessions is that we do not follow a “traditional” or “conventional” coaching style. Some who are watching may say it looks “messy”, “crazy” or “lacks structure because the children are not moving in a controlled direction, which we completely understand. However, what we see is children having the freedom to move around at their own speed and in the direction that they choose, which is providing children with the opportunity to make choices. We see this as a more realistic view of football, which is when we usually say “please trust us, there is a method to the madness”.
Football by nature has some structure in terms of player positions, formations and patterns of play. However, at the grassroots level and when it comes to developing young children/players, there is a big focus on individual player development. Not just their playing ability and technical skills, but many other factors such as problem solving and decision-making, physical strengthening and energy levels, confidence building and making friends, and more. At Football 2 Music, we believe that when trying to incorporate all of these elements, in addition to ensuring that each child has lots of ball contact and active movement time, remains engaged throughout the entire session and is taking part in realistic and age appropriate activities, the “traditional” and “conventional” (old school) coaching styles do not tick all of these boxes. This is why we believe our coaching style and key coaching principles and challenges, combined with the natural vibes and benefits of music, is the perfect combination and is how we achieve our mission of becoming your child’s favourite activity of the week.
By removing activities that involve standing in lines, minimising waiting times and allowing each child as much individual time with a football as possible, this helps us to maximise their active participation time. This then allows us to cater for individual needs, which results in increased levels of engagement throughout the session. Naturally, because of the amount of ball contact they have and opportunities for repetition, this enhances their technical skills and ball control, further boosts their confidence and encourages more creativity. By incorporating challenges and encouraging decision-making within a pressure free environment (which the music helps with massively!) young players can develop their problem-solving skills and tactical awareness. The introduction of playing against opposition within small-sided games/scenarios (only children aged 5+ in our programme) allows them to develop teamwork and incorporate what they have practiced earlier in the session into a realistic matchplay scenario, further enhancing the players overall understanding and experience. However, we stick to specific game management rules to ensure that each player finds it enjoyable and has opportunities to practice and be fully involved, which are in line with our key coaching principles and challenges. One example of this is that we play games with a maximum of 4v4 teams, as we find that larger sized teams significantly reduces the opportunities for each player. Look out for our blog post about “Effectively managing matchplay for young grassroots players” coming soon.
We have our own mission and club goals about what we want to achieve. However, we believe that there is a collective mission and goal for all grassroots sports clubs, which should be to get children more active and more interest in sport. This blog post is just a small insight into the way we are trying to achieve this.
If you would like to speak with us and find our more about our coaching style and unique fusion of football and music, please do not hesitate to contact us. To book in a free trial session for your child on our Saturday programme, just visit our website and take a few minutes to sign up.
Football Led, Music Inspired…
