Sir Trevor
Brooking has vowed to plough on with his coaching
blueprint even though he cannot get the professional
game to fall in line with his ideas for improving young
players.
As the Football Association's director of technical
development, Brooking has been charged with the task of
increasing standards in youth football, giving more
chance for the England senior team to enjoy the success
fans across the country crave.
Brooking has identified a dearth in skills between the
key development ages of five to 16, where the
involvement of qualified coaches is at its lowest point.
But so far,
despite some excellent work through sponsors Tesco, he
has been unable to get a unified strategy, with clubs
pocketing £180,000 a year from central funds with no
obvious assessment of the work currently being done.
Brooking accepts the situation is far from ideal.
However, after a three-year vacuum, the former England
midfielder is now focused on making his ideas work, even
if his efforts must, for now, be solely concentrated at
grassroots level.
"We needed investment on the coaching side and felt we
knew what we were doing in the grassroots. If we waited
for an agreement from the professional side, this
document would never have surfaced, so we have just
pushed on," said Brooking.
"In the end you hope the various constituent parts will
buy into the document and then the professional game
come round to it."
The source of Brooking's frustration is obvious.
It is widely accepted that some kind of strategy is
required if English youngsters are not to slide even
further behind their compatriots across Europe.
Equally, it is agreed that improvement can no longer be
expected through the normal channels of street football,
where Brooking learned his skills, due to changes in
society and the unwillingness of parents to let children
out of their sight for long periods.
Funding is in place too, around £20million of it
annually to be exact. Not surprisingly, Brooking wants
some control over how it is spent, putting in place a
quality threshold and targets that need to be achieved,
much like UK Sport do with the Olympic sports, to ensure
the most effective performers get rewarded.
Seems simple enough. Can he drive it through? Not a
chance.
"At the moment the money goes out without safeguards I
think are pretty elementary among other governing bodies
across Europe," said Brooking.
"But two or three years ago, there was a feeling that we
were going to pull a number of licences away because we
did not think they were good enough.
"What we ended up with was nothing happening at all for
two or three years so at least everyone could carry on.
"At the moment, everyone gets the same funding, which
has gone up to £180,000 per club but you don't identify
who is doing well because it is not performance related.
That is unfair on the good clubs.
"Instead, there are about 90 little subsidiaries each
doing their own thing. Some have a lot more knowledge
than others. Some are very good, some are okay, some are
not so good. They all need support and we can't give
them the support they would like. It is very
frustrating."
Brooking has concluded the battle cannot continue
indefinitely, hence the document which, in its edited
form, is a model of simplicity that should be essential
reading for any coach or parent of budding young
footballers.
"More has to be done in structured sessions than ever
before but the atmosphere is not always conducive to
development," said Brooking.
"That is why we are trying to focus on the dads running
the mini-soccer teams. We have to emphasise winning is
not important. What we want to know is whether the kids
are getting better? Or are they winning games because
the keeper is whacking the ball up to the big kid.
"We have to take away the intensity to get results.
"At Man Utd every parent has to sign a code of silence.
They get roped off in an area miles away from where the
kids are training and they are not allowed to utter one
word.
"That is the atmosphere you want. You need the kids to
be totally free to express themselves and to just enjoy
it."
Source:ParramattaSun.au
