I started coaching at the age of 23 when I was released from Lincoln City as a professional footballer.
It was fortunate that I’d completed my Level 2 badge as a scholar at Peterborough United, as to be honest at the time if you’d told me 12 months before that I’d be coaching then I wouldn’t have believed it!
I really had only ever focused on trying to achieve as much as I possibly could as a player. However once I’d been unable to get a full time contract at another club following my release then my thoughts turned to what I would do alongside any part-time playing contract I might earn.
My feelings always returned to how I could stay involved in football as best as possible. I did this by starting a multi-sports company called Semple Skills, (it didn’t take too long to come up with the name!) doing after school sessions and school holiday camps.
Two or three months after I began, I was approached by my home-town club Peterborough United where I spent 12 years as an Academy and first team player. They asked me to work with the current young players alongside the work I was already doing in schools. As I said earlier, the main thing for me was staying in football as best as I possibly could and combining these two roles with playing part time certainly enabled this to happen.
I applied for the menteeship because after spending 12 years as a player and almost nine as a coach at Peterborough, psychologically I felt it necessary to push myself outside of my comfort zone and work in a new environment.
Also the social challenge of interacting with new people with possible alternate views to my own was something I was very keen to do.
From a technical point of view I really wanted to develop my knowledge base of the different areas of work that impact delivery of football.
Finally through all the different experiences I hoped to be exposed to, I believed I would increase my network of contacts within the game. This is something that I believed was vital to keep improving as a coach.
And now I'm preparing to join Manchester City as their U15s coach and I start on 1 July which I'm so excited about.
Everything came about through me seeing the advert back in March and then going through the application process which involved two interviews. The first one was more formal where I had to prepare and deliver two presentations as well as take part in both a decision making and tactical analysis task. The second was a practical interview where I had to plan and deliver a session.
While the menteeship wasn't directly to do with me obtaining the role, there's no doubt that many of the skills that I enhanced throughout the programme helped me to showcase myself as best as possible.
In particular, the communication and presentation skills training and the fact that I have spent time with the the national teams must have also counted in my favour as well.
• The 12 months of the menteeship is split into seven placements within the technical directorate division of The FA.
• Each mentee spends two placements within the professional game team of The FA youth coach developers and the national coach developers.
• There are two more placements within the grassroots team, working with the county coach developers and The FA regional coach mentors.
• We’ve worked within the PE Unit. In October, all four mentees spent three weeks working in Madrid. Here we spent four evenings a week working with an academy club as a coach alongside their existing staff. We also spent time at the Spanish FA headquarters, being lucky enough to meet and be presented to by their lead head of education and also their technical director.
• The last placement for each mentee was spending time with either the men’s or women’s age group national teams. I spent my time with Neil Dewsnip in both the England Men's U16 and U18 camps in February and March at St. George’s Park.
• Finally, throughout the year as a group we had approximately 12, three-hour Spanish lessons, performance analysis and communication skills training. A lot to fit into a year!
What I learned from the coaching menteeship:-
1. Grasp every chance you get and try your best to learn from every situation, positive and negative.
2. Try and embrace doing things that you may struggle with in the beginning.
3. Give your absolute best in whatever situation you’re in and try to find the fun in every aspect of your football journey.
4. Even if you’re the type of person, like me, who naturally tends to focus on what’s in front of them rather than what’s happened previously, make sure you reflect on the experiences you’ve had, like past experiences, your approach and your reaction to things. When done correctly, evaluating the past can lead to being much better in the future.
5. Take a leap of faith! I left a relatively secure role to take this opportunity 12 months ago and it’s been a defining moment for me. While it would have been easy to carry on working in an environment I was comfortable and pretty happy in, I believe moving on allowed me to push my boundaries further and learn new skills to become a better coach longer term.
Here are my highlights of the menteeship:
• Spending the time with Neil Dewsnip and the MU16 and MU18 squads on camp are both experiences that are priceless to me.
• Being involved in the pre camp planning process and seeing the detail which has gone into to ensuring things run as smoothly as possible is something I’ll take with me throughout my career.
• Working alongside world class coaches in all disciplines and seeing how a large number of elite staff work in unison was such a benefit to my development as well.
• Also supporting players who are the best in this country and among some of the best you’ll find anywhere for their age has given me a real understanding of what’s required to work with and coach the absolute best, something I strive for in my own career.
If you’re thinking of applying for the programme yourself, be prepared to work as hard as you can, you’ll definitely do things and possibly be in environments that you’re not used to.
But if you’re serious about impacting the game of football positively, in whatever way your skills allow, then with the above approach it’s impossible for you not to get better. You’ll also have so much fun doing it!
