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invests £1m a week into the grassroots of football but we need the public’s support to drive a sea change away from the outdated image of kids’ football in this country – one driven by results with scant regard for developing future players.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?

Really this is the end

I missed most of the Championship play off final between Blackpool and Cardiff City played at Wembley yesterday but from the radio commentary, tv highlights and match reports in the newspapers, it's obvious this was a very special game and well looked after by Andre Marriner and his team of officials. The highlight for me has to be the post match interview with Ian Holloway manager of the victorious, if slightly unfashionable Premiership new boys, Blackpool.

He put his faith in the players who had gotten the club this far, pledged to let them have their chance at establishing Blackpool in the top division of English football and also put the world to rights with a few political statements. He admitted he had made a few mistakes over the years but looked forward not back. It will be very entertaining to hear his post match interviews when his team have been battered by Chelsea or sneaked a win at the City of Manchester stadium next season!

Today I wrapped up my season with the second day of the County FA's Basic Course for New Referees. Mark (the new boy) was fully involved today and it looked like his assessment went well. I worked with Dave W and we had some fun with our candidates especially during the mass confrontation exercise. I'm pleased to report that all 27 candidates passed the course and are now classed as Level 9 referees. When they complete their 6 qualifying games and attend their callback evening, they will be promoted to level 8 (under 16) and level 7 (16 and over).

Some of these new referees, especially the young girls, have some great opportunities available to them and I hope they take them. Meanwhile I am awaiting confirmation that the coaching groups have been advised to the candidates and then I will make contact with my group and hopefully begin the support needed to develop the FA Cup Final referee for 2035 (still my dream after 2 years as an instructor!). Batten down the hatches Mohammed, Mick, Danni, Michael and Ellie, we'll have some fun when the new season starts!

Have clipboard will travel

A short jaunt up the A1 to Thorp Arch found me coaching some developing referees who were looking after Leeds United U15s vs Derby County U15s. All three gave a good account of themselves and I hope they can take something out of the reports I sent them earlier today and use it in future games.

With Fat Lad and I taking a rest from training in anticipation of a busy weekend, he's been free to travel to the County FA to pick up his County Tie awarded to recognise his appointment as referee for a County Cup Final. Expect a picture on here once I can find one!

I had to turn down a game today as I'm already booked on another and I'd closed my date with all other competitions. It was to look after a FA Women's Reserve League game but I'm in the middle for my District semi-final in the morning and wouldn't make it in time for kick off. I'm also hoping to have enough energy left to take a trip to the County FA to watch the County's U16s play another representative side.

Bubbleblower from the RA forum is making the trip north as his son is playing for the away team, so we might have a quiet drink or two after the game.

Training XLVIII

After last Friday's abortive attempt at training we made it to the track last night.

With the Fat Lad facing another fitness test in just over a week, it was time for us to check out our distance. We started off at a reasonable pace and I was comfortable completing the first 400m at 1m45s but as I came down the home straight a local athletics club were still milling about. One of the coaches called the group across the track just as I was approaching them and most of the group demonstrated perfect etiquette by moving out of the way or waiting for me to pass them by.

One young man was far too engrossed in his conversation with his friend and stepped into my path. I tried to avert a collision but he still got bounced off my left hand side and I stumbled before stopping. His mumbled "Sorry" wasn't enough to get me going again and it was another 150m or so before I felt like I was running properly again. I ran on through to the end, pushing myself as hard as I could and I managed 2020m. It probably would have been 2050m but for the collision. So I've lost 60m since the fitness test practice in September. That's not too bad bearing in mind how many games and training sessions we've lost to the weather.

Fat Lad was disappointed as he only made 2350m but on the night, with an adrenaline rush and some encouragement from the sidelines, including someone pacing him through the last lap, I'm sure he can pick that up. At least he knows not to referee while injured which isn't something I can say for one of my coachees on Tuesday.

Despite my asking him repeatedly, he assured me that he wasn't injured, it became obvious that he was struggling very early on in his game for the local academy side who were playing an U15 fixture. All the development points in my report revolve around how the injury impaired his performance. Overall I thought he had a great game with a few shortcomings. Both his assistants were the same and all three are shaping up to be good, young referees.

Back to training now and once we had done our 12m run we did two sets of 800m. The first took 5m14s and the second, when I really pushed myself hard, was 4m 29s. That's not too bad after a 5m rest following the 12m run and only a 90s rest between the two sets of 800m. This was a 1050 calorie burner with an average hr of 81% and a max of 99%. That's pretty hard going and while I'm 400m short of the minimum distance, I'm hoping that a hard training programme over the summer might just see me hit that 2500m mark.