|FUNDAMENTALS| COACHING EDGE
And there’s more. Nine-year-old Ayesha did a
fantastic head stand in a gymnastics PE lesson.
Perfect balance, great body tension, weight
evenly distributed, head so still that she could
give herons fishing lessons. ‘What is she doing
that could help you improve when you play
football, cricket, netball, rugby or do dance?’ I
asked the group. There was lots of head
scratching. I didn’t call the nit nurse. Instead I
showed them a straight drive, played a video
of Zinedine Zidane passing and moving, and
another of Lauryn Williams winning the world
100m final. Ayesha did her head stand again.
This time they got it. ‘Why were you looking at
football videos in a gymnastics lesson?’ a
senior teacher asked a bit later.
Balance, coordination, agility: FUNdamental
movement skills that underpin all sport and
physical activity. ‘Kids with strong
FUNdamental skills have a better chance of
fulfilling their potential,’ says Professor Richard
Bailey from Liverpool John Moores University.
Bailey explains that advanced skill
development requires basic skills and kids need
FUNdamental skills to develop sports’ specialist
skills. ‘Youngsters who haven’t got these tend to
hit a skill barrier later in life,’ he says. ‘They can
only get so far by practising sports’ specific
skills, copying their heroes and family members
and relying on natural ability.’
sports coach UK runs a three-hour Introduction
to FUNdamentals course. Here, coaches hone
their observation and analytical skills to coach
good movement patterns.
‘The course made me look at how children can
move more efficiently,’ says Alison Tootill, head
of PE at New Bridge School in Manchester.
‘Coaching sessions aren’t just about one simple
game, but about lots of skills. It’s fun, exciting and
puts the play back into sport. Kids get used to
using skills and becoming more bodily aware.’
Andy Somers, Manchester FA girls’ football
development centre coach, went on three
sports coach UK courses, focused on agility,
balance and coordination. ‘I learned to coach
the whole range of movements, not just deliver
football-specific skills,’ he says. ‘You don’t just
learn how to design sessions that improve a
child’s skills, but also why this development is
important and the positive impact it can have
on the child.’
sports coach UK’s coaching network manager
in the North East, Yorkshire and Humberside,
Paul Connolly, explains that coaches who go
on these courses learn how to integrate
FUNdamental skills into their sessions. ‘We’re
not talking about a 15-minute warm-up,’ he
says. ‘FUNdamental skills need to be a core
part of what coaches deliver.’
weren’t born with time on the ball, balance and
control,’ he says, ‘they learnt these things, were
taught them when they were young.’
He adds that the English Football Association
(FA) has come on leaps and bounds but that
for too long, junior football was a silly copy of
the adult game. ‘11-a-side games with kids
hoofing the ball down a full-sized pitch and
running after it,’ he says. Bailey thinks Wayne
Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo or Luis Suarez are
elite performers who display good
FUNdamental skills. ‘Just watch how they run
with the ball,’ he says.
For one who doesn’t have good
FUNdamentals, he suggests listening to any
footballer who says ‘I’m a right-footed player’,
or watching a DVD of the England defenders
when Diego Maradona ran through them to
score his ‘other’ goal in that ‘hand of God’
World Cup game in 1986.
‘Coaching sessions
aren’t just about one
simple game, but
about lots of skills.
It’s fun, exciting and
puts the play back
into sport.’
‘Maradona was an all-time great, but that
wasn’t a skilled reaction from the England
defenders,’ Bailey says. ‘Half of them couldn’t
run properly or time their tackles.’
Connolly picks out England cricketer Jimmy
Anderson as an elite performer with good
FUNdamentals, for a different reason.
Anderson hardly ever gets injured these days,
which is a rarity among modern-day fast
bowlers. ‘Kids who learn to move more
effectively will be less injury prone as they grow
older,’ Connolly says.
An Anderson out-swinger doesn’t look much
like a Bale power run and even less like little
Ayesha’s head stand. Each one requires
balance, coordination and agility, though. Not
to mention poise, stability, rhythm and
concentration.
FUNdamental skills. There hasn’t been a
sporting great without them. C E
Connolly suggests having skill stations for kids
to move around while they’re involved in
games. ‘Get kids to do a balance at certain
times during a game or kick the ball through a
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