To the letter of the law without a signed contract these payments are actually 'reimbursements'

FWIW payments at NPL level in our area vary greatly, where as some players get nothing up to $800 that im aware of

The issue with that is that he would need to be able to identify these problems himself.

It is a struggle that many swnior players will face. As a coach you are between a rock and a hard place at this level, youve have players who arent technically up to it so you spend time working with them, players who probably arent as fit as they need to be (me) and then players who are tactically inept.

Very difficult to address all these issues in 4 hours a week.

If you were to ask me if i thought i could do a better job, i would say undoubtably, however i dont believe in player coaches so i wont be coaching until i finally call it a day. I dont knwo when that will be.

Interesting point on the fitness side of things, harry redknapp addresses the need to manage different types of players fitness in his autobiography when talking about john hartson

A very, very good question.

Most of the time I've been happy to coach for no remuneration, because it provides a good deal of goodwill.

So players wanting money at around 18.:-k

It depends on what is occurring elsewhere. In this milieu there are a lot of registrations and minimal payments made of circa $100 per game.

At rep level if the coach can't handle U15's below he shouldn't be there full stop.
Discipline is the key for starters - if kids muck about just as Decentric mentions, either have a word to them and their parents or ask them to leave.
As for senior club level say Div 1 - this is all generational imo, if your lucky to have found a squad that is committed and hungry for success trainings are intense/attended fully importantly.
These are the ype of squads who have grown up alot together, or many ex rep players etcetc....the trouble is finding them.
This is only x amount of clubs from every association I expect in every state.

That is a tough one.

This is difficult.

I actually was going to resign from a rep caching position, because of a lackadaisical attitude of too many players.

A few matches changed this.

With youth I suggest they are wasting their time and mine. Leaving the decision to them if they are disruptive, before booting them out with no improvement in attitude . This usually causes disquiet amongst players who are good trainers who are friends with the disruptive player, but cannot see their negative influence on training.

The major repercussions are parents. I give them short shrift, which usually results in them going over my head in the organisation. If I receive grief from higher up, I suggest they need to do come out and be a visible presence on the training track, if they want to call the shots.

I believe it is the coach's prerogative to decide when practice games can be played and when sessions can be cancelled due to poor weather and being able to boot out disruptive players. I've had some in FFA disagree.

The problem is with 13 -14 year olds, whose parents are good company, which is usually the majority. I f I have a difficult parent and a difficult, disruptive player, it is an easy decision. I also tell players they are wasting their time and mine, and communicate this to parents, often very ambitious for their own kid's football future.

In rep coaching a few years ago, I booted one out . His replacements were so keen, training the house down, others with a suspect attitude knew there were plenty of others willing to take their places, so they also pulled their socks up.

Also , in the rep system, coaches higher up like state coaches, or NTC coaches, also told players their attitude needed to improve if they wanted state or NTC honours.



For those 18 year olds the coach needs to talk to the whole group, then provide individual feedback forms. Often one finds out they are really pissed off with another player who sneakily annoys others.

Another thing that works for me, by chance, was asking the players to vote for the captain and vice -captain by secret ballot.

Nobody knows the ballot results apart from the coach . If you get a shocker, just appoint a decent role model further down the list.:lol:

I agree with the passion answer. Its the reason i will continue coaching long after im finished playing.

My concern is that my club, that i have been involved in as a player, coach, TD and administrator, ambitions do not match that of my own and i feel ill be forced to move on when the time comes to coach fulltime :cry:

As with all areas, once you drop below NPL level training seems to be optional to players and i have little interest in designing sessions for blokes who are there for the social aspect

New Signing said


In saying that i am currently being coached by a bloke who played premier league in brisbane, sydney, wollongong and canberra and he is really really ordinary. [b]Some of the things i have seen from him on the training pitch and tactically have lead to me just putting my head down and not saying a word as i dont want to undermine his authority. As a result if he is going to commit himself to coaching next season i will have no choice but to at least send him to do his senior cert




This is amazing.

You are higher qualified than your senior coach!

At least you are not undermining his authority. However, it is important that senior players like yourself, see some gains in skills/ game sense/ knowledge as you continue to play at senior revel.

Maybe you could ask him to provide individual feed back for each player to see where they need to improve?

This might result in him seeing the need for further coach education himself.

There was a similar scenario here, where one of the FFA staff coaches was still playing, at the same being a National Curriculum writer with Berger and Ali Edwards for the national SAP curriculum.

Eventually, he retired prematurely, as he wasn't quite good enough for NPL level. He knew it was intimidating for any of his coaches.







[i]Edited by Decentric: 30/4/2015 01:47:10 PM

This is the most important facet of coaching. Plan your session. Dont show up at 5:50 and expect you can start a session at 6 and make it up on the run ffs

Tard News I'd say the answer to all your questions is "passion". People have to have a love for the game to be prepared to do that. And you can harness a lot of that passion through professionalism (coaching, administration, facilities), enjoyment (incorporate fun into drills) and growth. If a person can see themselves "growing", that is accomplishment things they get more passionate about something. This is where "good" coaching comes in, IMO. If players can see themselves getting better than are more likely to continue playing. e.g. in karate there are belts ... it is an incentive to keep getting better to go up to the next belt, and as you get better chances are you will be more passionate about it.

I think the other thing is that with the new style of coaching with all the ball work, and keeping them constantly moving, with only 30 second drink breaks, increases enjoyment. Players also perceive that they are improving. Occasionally it doesn't hurt at the end of a training session and ask players what they've learnt over the last month.

One can also receive useful feedback, particularly if some players say they've learnt nothing new. I've always been able to point out what they have, that they've forgotten.

In sessions conducted , the objective is to have short discussions, even with seniors, and keep them busy for 90 minutes - 2 hours.

It takes very meticulous planning though.




Edited by Decentric: 30/4/2015 10:19:18 AM

Bang on the money, EG.

I'vd prefer to coach a keen kid, with little ability, who is willing to learn, and is appreciative, than an arrogant elite player, who is simply there for the extrinsic reward, ego gratification and a sense of entitlement.

As a teacher in my day job I've come down very hard on this type of player, kicking them out of sessions and upsetting parents, who subsequently complain to one's association.:roll:

I've insisted kids apologise, for them to come back into the team. Some stupid parents have then withdrawn their kids. One missed out on an appearance at national titles.

With senior players one can simply drop them to the reserves or bench.:lol:

Apparently, Christian Vieri was almost considered uncoachable when he was youth in Australia, as he was so disruptive.

When one reads Langan's and Four Five One's posts, what all and sundry should realise, is that coaches give up a lot of voluntary time and commitment to coach footballers. It can also be a thankless job.

It ls one of the things I like about playing and coaching senior football. I like the drink at the bar with adult players after games. One women's team , a social team, introduced me to a to a few excellent new beers.=d>

With senior players, one doesn't have to deal with ingratiating parents who are very ambitious for their own children either.






Edited by Decentric: 30/4/2015 10:20:13 AM

Another great read.=d>

This is what I'm seeing off forum, that many players are retiring from outdoor and playing Small Sided football in indoor /outdoor settings and futsal.

Players receive more touches, more involvement, less tactics, less formality and there is scope for a lot of mixed gender teams. All in all, this can equate to more enjoyment. Some elite female players are deriving great enjoyment from challenging themselves against more athletic male players in mixed comps.

This is a topic for another thread as FFA coaches differ diametrically on the intrinsic value of futsal as a tool for improving outdoor football performance. There is a level of tension between those for and against.





Edited by Decentric: 30/4/2015 10:03:58 AM

New Signing said


Its a catch 22 situation, when i done my license there were people who passed that course who were clearly pathetic and will never be capable of coaching any form of performance. Too dedicated to the text book to think for themselves. In saying that i am currently being coached by a bloke who played premier league in brisbane, sydney, wollongong and canberra and he is really really ordinary. Some of the things i have seen from him on the training pitch and tactically have lead to me just putting my head down and not saying a word as i dont want to undermine his authority. As a result if he is going to commit himself to coaching next season i will have no choice but to at least send him to do his senior cert

What this tells you is that i believe the contemporary coaching is very very usefull however experience as a player at a reasonable level is almost as important to understand the players and the game scenario.

The only credentials i have to back up my opinion are: C class qualified and about 15 years senior experience in premier and state leagues



I've cut and pasted this post from the other section.




Edited by Decentric: 30/4/2015 09:38:40 AM

The genesis for this thread, is that FFA are concerned that if players don't receive similar quality coaching, to what they receive in rep programs, with some well trained coaches. After they leave the programs, they often drop out of football because they can see little intrinsic benefit from their weekly coaching at club level.

I've found it a challenge to coach players in lower ranked rep programs after they've been axed from top FFA coaching programs. I've had to try and fill the shoes of excellent coaches, which is a challenge. Being an old codger doesn't help either, particularly to teenagers.

Conversely, many players turn up for coaching for extrinsic reasons. Because they have to to gain a position in a team, not because they are developing as a player from week to week, right up to the end of their senior playing career.

I know many senior NPL players who have dropped down a few divisions to play social football with their mates, or only play futsal and indoor football, which is less formal.

What a terrific read this post is.=d>

You've done some hard, thankless work.=d>

Older players need to understand why they need to pursue something. Older players need to be shown what the Tasks and Objectives for coaching sessions are.

It can be hard motivating older players, but I've found senior females very receptive, even if not playing at a high level.

Actually I can send you three versions of Piggy In The Middle, or rondos as the Spanish call them, that players can see some structure for.

It was the same scenario with me.

I'm not sure that I learnt a lot from other players like you did though, but just enhanced knowledge through playing football.

If I had had the knowledge I have now, I would never have stopped playing if coaches were always feeding back where I needed to improve. I would have worked on constant exercises I needed to do. Agree that current payers are lucky. In my day the players were always blamed for not getting stuck in enough if we lost. We thought it was always our fault and that the coach had nothing to do with us losing.

Instead I pursued karate, where there was constant feedback and explicit instruction in technique. From doing it, it has assisted my football coaching. They break down technique into so many component parts in karate.



Edited by Decentric: 30/4/2015 09:31:54 AM

This scenario wasn't considered terrible at the time.... it only seems terrible from your 2015 perspective.

Young players don't know how lucky they are today with the coaching networks that are availabel now.

Agree with Langan, as a coach, I can easily pick the players who are actually fans of the game and those who are just there for the excercise. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but the kids who legitimately love football are far more enjoyable to coach.

I play amateur seniors in Bendigo and do junior club and rep squad coaching here. The biggest problem I've seen in my area is a lack of football interest and knowledge. I've had coaches and team mates who knew more about AFL than they did soccer. These people can only play and coachthe game at its simplest form. Running, kicking, tackling and 'going hard'. Then there are the coaches who've done the courses but don't actually understand the game. These coaches will have their teams perform complex, arcane drills but they don't seem to understand that the drills are meant to teach something. A lot of the coaches in my area see drills as just something to do, not something that is meant to be improving a certain aspect of performance. This is where you can see a good coach. Do you do drills for the sake of doing drills? Or do you do drills because your team needs to work on something in particular and your coach gives you feedback.

When I have coached the Bendigo rep squads or bright new players into my club team from other clubs, I noticed that none of them actually knew why certain drills existed. I would say, 'this drill should work on positioning your body to receive abd play a pass on another angle.' They had usually done the drill but they had never known why or been told to change how they did it. Same with piggy in the middle. A lot of players or teams just do this drill. If you don't naturally get the game the coach should tell you, 'try not to do a controlling touch that takes you back the way the ball has come. Look laterally for a pass. Set yourself up before the ball arrives. Etc.' The improvements in the kids come straight away when you explain these things. It's often instant.

Unfortunately, understanding the game and the reason for drills is a slow process. It doesn't come in a weekend course. Coaches need to be fans of the game.

Players need to believe they still have things to learn too. If they don't then any effort to coach them is a waste of time.

I coached my senior div 12 team to no success. It was just a bunch of mates and no one else wanted the job. It was an absolute shit fight to get 12 blokes who didn't give a fuck to learn anything. I did a few courses to try and improve my skills but it's hard when half your team is either stoned or throwing up mid game from the night before. We didn't make the finals once in 5 years. I was a bit reactive as a coach, I tried to help individuals learn from their mistakes and praise them when they did something good in roughly equal measure. We did improve a bit, first season we were losing every game by 5-10 and by the end we averaged 3 goals a game but unfortunately we still conceded 4-5.

I took half of this team to indoor and we killed it. We climbed from 4th division to 1st in 4 years and made the GF 4 times in a row with the same group of shit cunts. We regularly beat guys that played rep for Mounties and Blacktown. I don't think I taught people too much but I tried my best to lead by example, in saying that my strength was probably positioning my team in order to get the best passing lanes. Everyone had a defined role, either a position on the field, someone to shutdown the best opponent and someone to sniff out the weakest.

We learned much faster in the smaller format wih more touches on the ball. I'd say we learned a lot from playing better quality opposition than in outdoor and also the smaller field suited the fat cunts on my team to a tee. Communication was much easier and we were much more aware of where everyone was around us.

I dunno if that answers your broad ass question but I hope it helped.

When i played way back when i was a junior i had to stop playing due to injury.
But I found the coaches i've had hardly taught me anything tactically it was fitness and the playing style was just kick and rush and thats at state league level, it was outdated football.

Obviously things have changed since then and now where i assist coaching kids we use the FFA NC and other coaching resources its all based on teaching technique, thats with 7 and 8 year olds.

I kind of wished i went through the new technical reforms now, the current kids are lucky these days. :(

I play in a senior team with good mates and coach U16s at the club I spent 14 years at as player. I used to coach a much younger team, who've now become a very good little side.

The academy from your club is doing a good service.

I thought you still played?

Good to hear you had coaches who you kept learning from.

Terrible scenario, similar to the bloke I know who won a VPL title at senior level .

#-o

Edited by Decentric: 29/4/2015 07:21:45 PM

Pv ofcourse its generalised but im sure some commonality comes out from posts as proven.
Its so varied its ridiculous and thats the big problem at hand.
Many clubs are still behind the times and a small % are what the ffa are trying to implement.
All depends what type of club your with but imo each state governing body duties should be to get out there more and visit clubs spreading the word more.
Their websites are not used enough im sure.

Hey Decentric , thank me getting your thread going lol

FWIW,
The local club that I coach at has an adacemy who play through the club. That academy runs training for coaches on a weekly basis, which can provide some handy stuff. Most of my coaching through comes from 2 of my old coaches who I loved playing under and learned everything from. If I'm ever stuck for ideas I scroll through Performance or Google some ideas to respond to weaknesses from the match on the weekend.

I learnt more about actually playing football from fellow players rather than coaches.

To me, coaches were only good for providing fitness excercises.

This is a massive problem.

Others like myself, including the guy who won a VPL title, are so horrified as to how we were coached 40 odd years ago, we enjoy seeing the modern improvements.