Applied Coaching Research Journal Research Journal 2 | Page 22

APPLIED COACHING RESEARCH JOURNAL 2018, Vol. 2
Spanish. He recalls the challenge of forcing himself
to approach people who could speak both languages
to help him:
“I’m not the most forthcoming of people so for me
to do that was a big step. I’m actually quite a shy
person, but I thought I’ve got to do this for my own
career and for the enhancement of futsal in England,
so I think those uncomfortable periods were actually
the best learning experiences I could have had.”
This experience adds strength to the idea that some
effective coaches turn challenging situations into
learning opportunities. Furthermore, when Pete
realised that language could be a potential barrier to
deeper learning (due to the lack of high-level futsal
material in English), he learnt to read and speak
Spanish, demonstrating that a keen willingness
to learn and an openness to collaboration are
important criteria for experiential learning.
Another learning opportunity that Pete undertook
was a trip to the north of Spain to spend a week
shadowing a futsal club whose first team was fed
by an academy. The pathway they had established
greatly interested him and he spent time studying
the stages of development they had put into place,
recalling that “I thought as a model of development
I need to know more about this”. The impact of
this experiential learning has been significant as it
forced Pete to evaluate the current levels of futsal
exposure in English development programmes and
informed the agenda he has championed through
the Foundation Phase DNA resources. As a result,
futsal is now being introduced to football players
at a younger age, demonstrating how transfer can
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occur once new ideas are trialled – similar to Kolb’s
(1984) Experiential Learning Cycle 4 .
Finally, moving on to his concurrent role as FA Lead
National Coach for the Foundation Phase. This role
established him as an expert on this age group, and
within two years he created the Youth Module 1
Award that is still in use today. This position forced
him to critically analyse his own learning and use
it to refine and articulate his coaching philosophy,
which focuses equally on character and connection
alongside technical and tactical development. He
recounts: “I was at a point in my coaching career
and I wanted to galvanise everything that was
important to me.” The material on the FA Youth
Module 1 Award was inspired from Pete’s previous
experiences of coaching, combined with his intuition
that the current formal learning material wasn’t
appropriate or relevant to how coaches should
interact with young players. He combined his ideas
about player centredness, open communication,
relationships, creativity and developmentally
appropriate practices. If we apply Moon’s (2004)
ideas on learning we can view his development as
a process of changing conceptions (the cognitive
structure) and not simply accumulating knowledge 2 .
Pete’s commitment to challenging existing
information and actively seeking out research
to inform his own ideas highlights the value
of unmediated learning and demonstrates that
“effective coaches are lifelong learners committed
to personal growth”. 12 He challenged the limitations
that he found in his early formal learning and
eventually was able to create a course that
addressed those issues.