YOUTH
DEVELOPMENT
Simon Cooper
Head of Academy Coaching (9-18)
Oldham Athletic Football Club
Footballs an amazing industry to work in full time as you never know where you can end up from one week to the next. This month I was promoted to "Head Of Coaching/Assistant Academy Manager" after the departure of Mick Priest who is my good friend and one of my coaching mentors. Mick is moving on to work with his good friend Rene Meulensteen in a coaching capacity and it is an opportunity he just could not turn down.
It's amazing to think I was a community grassroots coach just 5 years ago and a doing plumbing management in my day job and I am in the place I am in now. I hope this inspires others in grassroots football that with hard with sacrifice anything is possible in the game.
The reason I am here is because I read a book called the "Power Of Your Sub-Conscious Mind" by Dr Joseph Murphy and it blew my mind open. I could not believe nobody had educated me at school with this amazing tool of how to use your mindset to achieve your goals that I read out of this book. After reading this book I started to read Bounce, The Talent Code and a book called "How To Win Friends And Influence People By Dale Carnagie and this opened my mind to creating new tools and methods in coaching football.
Another key factor was the return of myself to church which gave me answers to a bigger picture and installed in me a "faith" of what life is truly about. My life now runs in the order of family first, work second but on a foundation of God and his principles of love.
You may think this has nothing to do with football but I urge you to do your homework on the following great coaches and they have the same 3 key elements in their success. My thinking was to be the best then surely I need the same knowledge as the best, living the same life as the best.
Vincent Lombardi(American Football), Sacchi (Italy World Cup Winning Team), Pep Guardiola, Jose Mouriniho, Sir Matt Busby, Bill Shankly, Sir Alex Ferguson, John Woodward, Phil Jackson (LA Lakers)
Study the books written by these great men and do what they do and learn from their mistakes and you can achieve anything if you put your mind to it. I replaced going to the pub, smoking etc with spending my spare time every single day in studying the game and new and "Old" coaching methods. If we fail to study history then our future's are on straw foundations and I learnt the power of this principle when I read a football book called "Inverting the Pyramid Of Football" by John Wilson.
Eltham Lions Unser 13's
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