Foundations to build on

Writing in The Sunday Times, Sir Trevor Brooking reiterates future plans.

Returning home with a dejected England squad on Tuesday morning was a sombre experience.

We had left these shores a month earlier with high hopes. But nothing compares to the low of a humiliating defeat and an abrupt exit. So, once again, the nation is rightly searching for reasons why it happened and how we can prevent it from happening again.

I firmly believe that in Fabio Capello we have a truly world-class coach to lead the England senior team as we now focus on Euro 2012. Meanwhile, my priority is on ensuring that, into the future, the England Manager has the very best talent at his disposal.

I am acutely aware that there are no quick fixes and no easy answers but I am convinced that, put simply, the key to securing this future is that we must have more and better coaches with access to more kids at an earlier age.

The FA invests £1m a week into the grassroots of football but we need the public’s support to drive a sea change away from the outdated image of kids’ football in this country – one driven by results with scant regard for developing future players. In the last two years, we’ve totally revamped all of our coaching courses. A big part of that has been creating the new FA Youth Award. Over 2,000 coaches signed up for this Award in its first year but we need more people to take this course which specifically trains coaches in how to work with young players.

For me, the priority has to be improving skills at a young age, before it becomes too late. Many of your children will have been involved in The FA Tesco Skills programme which has grown significantly in the last year, with over 1.5m 5-11 year-old aspiring footballers enjoying the high quality youth coaching on offer from a network of skills coaches. I’m delighted that this week we got a timely boost with the news that Tesco have extended their support for another four years which means we can recruit more skills coaches and further expand the programme.

This 5-11 age group is key. These youngsters must have mastered the basics skills of controlling the ball in their mini soccer games so they can pass and dribble the ball with confidence. If not, they will struggle to cope with the tactical demands of 11-a-side football once they get into their teens. We have to encourage flair and technique so that as players get older we can teach tactical awareness and good decision-making if we are to stand a chance of competing with other flourishing nations.

At the top level, earlier this summer we produced a new coaching blueprint titled The Future Game which involved significant input from across the professional game and has been extremely well received. This is a vital, and long-overdue, technical guide for youth coaches showing how we need to develop players to contest at the highest level of world football. We must ensure this is delivered as widely as possible. We’re also aiming to produce a grassroots version by the end of the year.

On an annual basis, the number of people qualifying for the top UEFA coaching qualifications in England - the A, B and Pro Licences - is now on a par with all of Europe’s leading nations. Some of football’s biggest names have recognised the quality of our instruction. Gianfranco Zola and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer were learning alongside some talented young English coaches such as Chris Kiwomya, Neil Redfearn and Jason Dodd when I attended our latest Pro Licence course on Friday.

But we must now put in place the support infrastructure for these coaches to ensure their experience and knowledge is shared throughout the football community, right down to the grassroots and youth levels. That is why the concept of a National Football Centre is vitally important for English football. Opening St George’s Park at Burton-upon-Trent would provide the finishing school for producing more home-grown managers and coaches, a place where the coaching community, from England to your local youth team, will have the same access to resources and experience to pass on to their players. We are the only leading football nation without a Centre of this kind, but St George's Park will be something to be proud of - a symbol of national pride and hope for the future.

And there are some sound foundations to build on. At the international level there have been some encouraging signs. Our U17 team performed exceptionally well in winning the European Championship in May following on from appearances in Euro Finals last year from our men’s Under-21 and U19s and women’s U19s.

At The FA there are dedicated people working very hard for the good of our game but we alone cannot provide all the solutions – we need everyone who cares about football to play their part and help us implement our new playing philosophy at all levels.

As an example, if just 1 in 600 of Sunday Times readers took a level 1 basic coaching course and The FA Youth Award, we would instantly double the number of specially qualified youth coaches. Now, wouldn’t that be a fitting response to the disappointment of our exit last Sunday?