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Critical analysis of the impact that

project work has on the development of


football for youth males
Live project work analysis by Boni Bonev

Introduction:

The following essay has the aim to critically analyse the impact of project
work on youth football development .
The Football Leadership Project in Applemore Technology College,
Southampton is being delivered by 2-nd year football Studies Students, as part
of Football Development Unit, focusing in youth male sport participation. The
project work includes practical delivery of football sessions once a week, for
year 6 and 7 students and it has been monitored by Hampshire FA mentors
and the PE teachers.

The objectives of the project are to research the role National Football
Association initiatives play in schools and colleges across Hampshire and to
look at ways educational institutions deliver these projects. To consider ways
in which they could be developed within their selected institution and view
possible barriers and ways in which to overcome these. Academic literature
related to the demographic focus group of this project would be investigated
and compared to existing practices from England and Europe. In order to
better understand the efficacy of such initiatives, their strengths and
weaknesses would be analysed and critically examined.

The aim of the live project is to increase participation, to identify which


players have not yet had a football club and to involve them in football clubs.
Talent identification would be of major importance and opportunities for
youth males to participate in organised football would be considered. The
findings of this project would be of importance for National Governing Bodies,
since they are the ones organising and monitoring the project itself. They also
may be of use to the School and PE teachers to further investigate and
evaluate not only quantitative data, such as participation rates, but also
qualitative, for example social inclusion and peer interactions.

As defined by Girginov (2008), youth sports development in the United


Kingdom is probably the most important setting for accommodating healthy
lifestyle in the communities and promoting social inclusion and moral values
in the younger generation (Girginov, 2008). Similiar social theory was
outlined by Putnam, supporting the abovementioned finding, as the author
defines that sports participation in the United States promotes powerful
communities networking and have lots of positive effects on societies, such as
establishing relationships of trust, enhance employment rates and lower
levels of social commotion. Moreover, international sport performance is
constantly seen as an index of successful sports development platform
(Putnam, 2001).

In England, sport has the unique and unmatched ability to excite and unite
the nation in numbers (Trimble, 2010). Sport: Raising the game plan (1995)
was the first official document in the modern history of English football to
promote and encourage weekly sport activities in every school in England. A
plan that started in 1995 and got its GBP 300 million per year funding from
the National Lottery. John Major, Prime Minister at that time, was the first to
support the establishment of a link between school teachers, parents, athletes,
clubs and governing bodies. That set a solid foundation of the sport and
football development, in particular, as a process linking all three leisure
sectors: Public, through schools and government funding, Volunteer, mainly as
workforce, in coaches and parents, and Private, in facilities and leisure
structures organising and running events (Trimble, 2010). The concept of
National Lottery funding for sport was later on adopted by the Department for
Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and Sport England and they have invested
GBP 2.8 billion between 1997 and 2008. Furthermore, since 1994 the
government invested additional GBP 550 million in order to develop sport,
improve the sporting infrastructure, and promote physical activity at
grassroots level in England in preparation for the London 2012 Olympic
Games (Sport England, 2009).

Another FA initiative is The FA Vision, addressing the problem with the 1,1
million 5-15 years old youth who want to join a team but have not got a clear
idea how exactly to do it (The FA, 2012). That initiative and Sport: Raising the
game from 1995 are strongly related to the projects this essay is focusing on,
as these also sets the standards of a partnership between schools, colleges,
universities and local clubs.
Participation:

In England, the latest National Game Strategy 2015-19 (NGS) has a focus in
four main areas. These are participation – with target of 11% increase in
female participation rates by the end of the period; player development or
talent identification and pathways for future progress; football workforce,
such as volunteers, referees and qualified coaches; and better training and
playing facilities.

Although one of the main priorities of that NGS is to increase sport


participation, Active People Survey (APS10) from 2016 reports that there is
decline in participation in 17 out of the 32 sports funded by the government
through Sport England. The data is from APS9 (2015) and APS10 (2016) and
here is important to note that participation numbers are relatively steady for
usually popular sports, such as football, swimming, cycling and athletics.
Contradictory, Rugby League and Cricket, two sports with strong traditions in
English society, have the highest decrease rates, 10% and 12%, respectively
(Sport England, 2016).

On the other side, according to the latest report by Sports England (March
2017) on participation rates, results show an increase in female participation
and that was one of the targets in NGS (2015-19). Furthermore, more than 7.2
million women participated in sports for at least 30 min a week in 2016. That
is the most significant increase in female participation since the launching of
“This girl can” campaign in 2015. As this may be seen as success, the report
also shows decrease in disabled participation, with almost 21 000 less people
took part in sport activities, compared to the year before (Sports England,
2017).
In the context of the live project this essay is focusing on, the academic
literature suggests that there are three main barriers to participation for
youth males within school initiative programs: lack of enjoyment and fun,
socializing with peers or family and negative coaching experiences (Quested
et al., 2013; Parnell et al., 2013; Allison et al., 1999). The findings of Petlichkoff
(1996) also strengthen that theory, as he suggests that the highest chance of
dropping out of sport have the youths in their mid-teens. The main reason for
the participants to drop out of the sport in their 15-16’s is that in this
particular age they have many distractions, such as studies, peer or family
relationships, new interests and the change of physique (Petlichkoff, 1996). In
addition, Quested et al. (2013) in their study examines 6641 youth grassroots
football players from England, Spain, Greece, Norway and France and their
level of football activity satisfaction, suggest that coaching experience is the
most important setting for the young participants (Quested et al., 2013).

Parnell et al.(2013) conducted a research based project on the effectiveness


of a Football in the Community scheme (FitC) in Liverpool, England. The
project had a focus on promoting health benefits and positive behaviour
change in children aged 8 to 11 (Parnell et al., 2013). Interesting finding in
that study was that for the 16 weeks of the FitC scheme there was a total
drop-out rate of 54%. The article also identify that a large proportion of this
54 %, equals 30 participants, motivations to cease their participation were
due to lack of enjoyment, lack of challenge and poor coaching practices
(Parnell et al., 2013). Based on that academic information it is important to
note that coaching and volunteer motivations and practices seem to be one of
the main settings for successful player development.

Football workforce:

The other important aspect of football development, according to the latest


NGS (2015-19) is the football workforce. With targets aiming 90% of all youth
competitive games to be officiated by qualified referee by the end of 2019.
This division of the development process is probably the most important one,
as suggested by the academic literature. Volunteers, usually are the main
workforce behind organising and running events, tournaments and even
leagues and since they deliver affordable sport service and have their non-
commercial motivations, they are often seen as one of the most important
resources in football development (Misener and Doherty, 2009). Sport
England review from 2016, focusing on volunteer’s motivations identified that
learning new skills, personal satisfaction and enhancing cv for future
employment were the strongest motivators amongst the volunteers in club or
school initiatives (Nichols et al., 2016). Academic theory on the topic shows
also that student motivations can be defined in two main groups: intrinsic,
such as enjoyment and gaining experience; and extrinsic, focusing on
developing skills and employability profile (Hayton, 2016; Schlesinger et
al.,2015). Hayton’s study examined motivations of student volunteers in
University-led community based project in North East England. Semi-
structured interviews approach with 40 volunteers, gaining quantitative data
were conducted and results show that intrinsically motivated volunteers, for
example motivated to develop future employment skills, were more likely to
remain volunteers in other, non-sporting activities, after the end of the
current project. Therefore, they will continue to benefit the community and
the society as a whole and not only in sporting context. Moreover, they were
found to be strongly associated with higher rates of retention in volunteer-led
activities, hence developed a range of social skills, not typically associated
with sport and were vital factor in sustainability of such initiatives (Bang et
al., 2012; Hayton, 2016).

Player development:

Another priority in the NGS (2015-19) is player development and identifying


talent pathways for players as young as 5 years old (The FA, 2014). There are
a number of National Game Strategies addressing player development and
talent identification like Tesco Skills Programme and School Football (The FA,
2007), The Future Game (The FA, 2010), National Game Strategy 2011-15,
National Game Strategy 2015-2019 (The FA, 2014). Probably the one with the
most significant impact was The Future Game in 2010, focusing on the
opportunities for developing better players, starting from grassroots level
(The FA, 2010). With The Football Association changing the playing formats
for the youth group ages in 2010 and organising specific Talent ID courses
since 2016, the Governing body in England are trying to navigate better
quality players in to the talent pathways.

Linked to the current NGS idea of talent identification, Vaeyerns et al. (2006)
project examined 490 youth male football players, grouped in under 13 (U13),
U14, U15 and U16 age groups and competing in four different youth football
divisions in Belgium for a period of five full seasons. The multivariate
approach used in this study identified that elite youth football players have
greater football skills and dynamic capacities than non-elite players. This can
be explained with the fact that training time decreased from top to bottom on
the elite-amateur scale, from 6-7 hours per week for elite players to 3-4 hours
per week for the lowest division team ones. Authors also find that
characteristics like speed and football technique play important role in U13
and U14 age groups, whereas with the older ones, U15 and U16, anaerobic
performance was suggested to be most important talent predictor. However,
limitations to their study is the fact that only outfield players were analysed
and results are not relevant to goalkeepers and their talent indicators
(Veayerns, et al., 2006).

In England, Reilly et al. (2000) also investigated talent predictors in youth


football, however, with much smaller sample group of 31 elite and non-elite
football players on competitive level. Their results show similar data as
Vaeyerns et al.’s study that elite players has advantage in most of the physical
components, included in their multivariate analysis. Of the results Reilly et al.
identified body measure, speed, agility, motivation and anticipated skill as the
strongest predictor of talent (Reilly et al., 2000). However, Reilly et al.’s
relevance of results can be argued because of the time since the study was
conducted - over a decade ago, the numbers in the sample group - 31 and the
time the study lasted - only one football season. Linking the academic findings
on the topic to the live project, looks like physical performance, endurance
and football specific skills are the main characteristics coaches and scouts
were to look for in order to spot talent and develop better players in future.
However, it is argued that there are many other distractions for youth male
athletes, as they are in the highest drop-out age. According to Petlichkoff
(1996), the main reason for that are the change of interests, studies, peer or
family relationships and the change of physique (Petlichkoff,1996). Therefore
identifying and developing talent seem like a process complicated and
dependant on many variable factors, some of them qualitative and
measurable, such as speed and size, but some of them qualitative, like
anticipated skill level and social inclusion and peer interactions.

Conclusion:

The current NGS focus is on participation, workforce, better facilities and


player development. Participation of the demographic group this essay
addresses is found to be dependent on many factors. Main indicator is found
to be level of satisfaction and enjoyment of the football practice or activity.
Therefore, the level of coaching expertise and satisfactory experience is
considered an area where improvement is needed.

Football workforce is another aspect of football development this reading


was investigating. The findings show that volunteer motivations play an
important role in recruiting and retaining that workforce. Intrinsic
motivations were found to be the driving force behind volunteering and
factors such as benefits for participating and social income were found not so
relevant to overall motivation of the football workforce. Coaching
qualifications, CPD events and volunteer or coaching expertise involvement in
the game were found important, based on the academic evidence. Level of skill
and knowledge shown by the volunteer coaches was determined as a key
indicator in retaining participation in youth football projects and initiatives.

Talent identification and further player development was found to be


process complicated and depends on variety of factors. Predictors of success,
based on the academic literature analysed, were defined as physical
characteristics in the group ages until under 14’s, and perceived skill levels,
anaerobic performance and endurance for the older groups.
The specified courses run by the FA on Talent Identification are relatively
new, so success can not be measured at the time. Further investigation of
these initiatives may be conducted for more valid results.

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