Grassroots football: no more barking from the touchline

First of all the caveats. These are my own personal views and opinions, not those of any club or organisation. I also make no apologies for using generalisations in this post since it is the only way to address the topic without using a lot of exceptions or trying to contextualise to the Nth degree. Hopefully, many of you will be able to recognise the various traits in the people around you who fit into the relevant categories. Ok, now that I’ve got that out of the way, let’s begin and it begins with a conversation I had in the pub last Thursday night.

Every, well nearly every, Thursday night a group of us meet in our local. We’ve been doing this in one form or another for about 12 years now at least and, being a group of lads, we tend to have a few pints and talk absolute drivel, you know the way men do.

Last Thursday night, the topic of conversation turned to kids football and inevitably the behaviour of some coaches and parents. That is very telling. The topic was coaches and parents, not the players themselves or the football that was played, that was almost second to what went on around the match and that in itself is very depressing. I won’t go into all the details but suffice to say that my own experience as a coach and a football parent seems to be commonplace judging by the tales other parents have to tell. Coaches berating players, referees, and parents. Parents, berating coaches, players, referees and even other parents. Coaches with a win at all costs mentality and, if they have coaching qualifications, displaying no insight or profession of teaching, learning and development so crucial to successful coaching in youth football. Parents believing they are watching from the terraces of a professional football club rather than watching their children being taught and coached in the game they profess to love. It’s particularly sad that, having attended several FA coaching courses recently, the FA seem to believe that things are getting better. The fact is that it is not and it will not until a firm grip and some decisive action is taken to bring those coaches and parents concerned kicking and screaming if necessary into the modern game and if they’re not willing to embark and complete the journey then to get them out of the game once and for all with a clear messages that their behaviour is unacceptable.

So what’s the answer? Well here’s what I suggest. It’s radical, you may not agree, but it’s my opinion and it will hopefully spark debate if nothing else.

License coaches. Not just a voluntary licence such as the FA Licensed Coaches Club (a good idea but insufficient in itself), a mandatory licence requiring at least FA Level 1 and revocable by County FAs if the coach does not adhere to a code of conduct or is found guilty of misconduct. I’m going to make an analogy to coaching being about teaching and learning with the field of play being the classroom in which our children perform and you wouldn’t want a non-qualified teacher shouting abuse at your children at school, would you?

No parents near the field of play. That’s right, no parents near the field of play. Not just behind a RESPECT line, nowhere, and I mean nowhere, near the field of play. I realise what sort of reaction that will provoke. Remember I’m a football parent too, I have two daughters who both play, but the fact is that at the risk of pitching the well-behaved parents in with the badly-behaved, parents cannot be trusted to remain calm and detached enough to let the coaches and most importantly the players to get on with the game. It’s what happens at Academies and if it’s good enough for them then it should be good enough for the grassroots too. Taking parents away from the field of play will take a load of pressure off both the players and the coaches. It will turn the field of play into a classroom instead of a bear-pit. I mean, after all, you don’t expect to be able to watch your kids in the classroom at school and barrack the teachers and the kids when they do things wrong or don’t put in enough effort, do you?

PS Whilst writing this I see that reports are coming in that Raheem Sterling the young, talented Liverpool player is to appear on a charge of common assault on a women causing facial injuries. Enough of grassroots coaches and football parents, perhaps it’s time that our professional footballers started setting an example worthy of following.

How I got to where I am now

What follows is a case study about me; how I started my legal career and how I got to where I am now. It was written in response to a request by the Junior section of the Law Society for voluntary case studies describing people’s experience pre and post-qualification. I think it gives a neat summary of my professional career in 500 words. Enjoy, I know I did!

“Back in the day they called it ‘articles’ and I completed mine as an Articled Clerk with a 5 partner firm of solicitors, Ironsides (still a great name), in Leicester.

I had graduated from the University of Leicester, successfully completed my Law Society Finals at the Chester branch of the College of Law, and wanted to return to the city which is still very dear to me. It was 1986, a time of recession not unlike present times, where it was hard work securing what is now known as a training contract. Fortunately, Ironsides took a chance on me and I spent two very happy years there leading up to qualification as a solicitor.

Much to the disappointment of the firm however, I decided to try and get more commercial experience and therefore joined what was then Hepworth & Chadwick (later part of Eversheds) in Leeds as an Assistant Solicitor in the Commercial Property department. I hated it. Personality clashes with my Principal and an unsupportive environment soon led me back to Leicester and a niche commercial property/planning practice known as Staunton Townshend, which very soon became part of Edge & Ellison (later Hammonds).

I learned a lot at Edge’s but I decided that the route to partnership was not for me. Encouraged by a friend of mine, who’d trod a similar path and who was now back at the College of Law only this time as a Lecturer, I started to think about branching into professional legal education. Eventually, I managed to obtain a position as a Lecturer at Nottingham Law School, principally teaching Property on the newly formed LPC but also contributing to the LL.B and GDL teams. Over the course of the next 10 years I moved through the gears from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer to Head of the Property team, designing and re-designing what became a market leading course and playing a central role in the creation of a new form of LPC specifically for the top City firms. After 10 years however, I felt I’d gone as far as I could at NLS and it was time to move to pastures new, the College of Law.

I’ve now been working at the College/University of Law for 10 years, 10 years that has seen much change in legal practice, legal education, and the organisation in which I continue to work. At first I was employed as a course designer, later became a Practice Head, and now I’m the Head of Learning Design with overall responsibility for the organisation’s learning and design methodology. It’s been an eventful path that’s led me to where I am now and a path that I would not have been able to foresee back when I was a mere Articled Clerk. Who knows what the future holds and that is my advice to any young lawyers: stay focused but keep your vision open, for where you are may not be where you will be.”

Dad’s Diary: Hey, I’m still here!

The Rise of the Master Learners

Education Leadership

I’ve made reference in a previous post on this blog to a certain Will Richardson and his book, ‘Why School?’, which I read just recently. I’ve gained a lot of inspiration from his ideas about education which led me to reflect on my work in legal education, my football coaching, and the education and parenting of my two daughters, Olivia and Natasha.

Will’s idea of teachers no longer being deliverers of content, which was their role in an age of scarcity of knowledge but is no longer relevant in an age of abundance, but rather being ‘master learners’ is a role that I very much feel at home with. We must empower our children to create and develop their own learning circles and environments since the themes of self-reliance, self-starting and self-confidence define the successful individual in today’s society. Those same individuals when armed with consideration and compassion are those who are also best placed to contribute to society as a whole. It’s all about being confident not arrogant, considerate not ignorant.

The stumbling block to this new way of viewing education? Old school traditionalists. Those teachers/tutors who are unwilling to embrace the reality of today’s world, who refuse to acknowledge that the social media revolution and the evolution of mobile digital networks is here and now, who continue to stick their heads in the sand of paper-based content in the teeth of a firestorm of freely available information. Blow them away is what I say! Do not let them suppress those who wish to move on from old school traditional teaching to a new role of mentor, coach, master learner. They had their time, now it is ours and we should not be prepared to let our children suffer at their hands simply because they are unwilling to evolve.

Mine’s A Pint!: Premier Select Bud (7.5% ABV)

University, why do it?

I read an interesting article in The Times this Saturday (19 Jan 2013) about the American Multi-billionaire, Mark Thiel. Thiel made a fortune as one of the founders of Paypal and lent $500,000 to Mark Zuckerberg in return for a 10% share in Facebook which in turn worked out to be worth an absolute stack. Thiel, is a reclusive philanthropist who has BIG ideas. He is disappointed that the sum total of our technology is not colonisation of space or the discovery of Eco-friendly alternatives to fossil fuels but the ability for millions of humans to communicate instantly in less than 140 words.

The thing that really struck me about the article was Thiel’s mentoring of incredibly bright 19 year olds (one had built his own nuclear fusion reactor in his Dad’s garage) whose ideas had the potential to change the World and the way we live. That mentorship and patronage extended to the payment of £100,000 each if they started their own businesses and projects (funded with Thiel’s money and expertise) instead of going to university. The premise was that the university route was a waste of time, a route that inevitably lead to Wall Street (in US circumstances) as a means of alleviating student debt and meeting parental expectations, and a route that channelled talent away from it’s full potential.

Coincidentally, I had also read a short book entitled ‘Why School?’ by Will Richardson in which he questioned the relevance of traditional educational routes, in particular whether traditional teaching and learning methodology was irrelevant given the educational technology now available. The ability to educate yourself is all around and for most people the internet is the gateway to self-development, in whatever form and at whatever speed and time you wish.

So, this begs the question: “University, why do it?” For too many the answer is ” Because it leads to status and a well paid job”. Unfortunately, for the same many, that answer is a fallacy. Erosion of the professions through rampant consumerism that chases the lowest price from the lowest common denominator has seen to that. Student debt, exorbitant house prices, equally exorbitant rented accommodation and a recession that demands more from employees given less resources and rewarded with less pay all add pressure. In fact the term ‘Quarter-life Crisis’ has now been coined to describe the way 22-29 year olds feel trapped by the aforementioned in a life going nowhere. Maybe the answer is to stop chasing the university route, the yellow brick road with an equally disappointing Wizard of Oz at the end. Maybe the answer is to embrace education as a truly lifelong developmental duty that we owe ourselves to continue, education free of tuition fees and unadventurous courses lacking innovation, invigoration, engagement and imagination. Never has the term ‘University of Life’ been truer. Set your own course, define your own outcomes, decide your own mode(s) and sign up today, now!

Mine’s A Pint!: Thornbridge Versa Weisse Beer (5.0% ABV)