FFA national audit reveals football participation boom

I would like the FFA to establish a foundation/charity to help mainly grassroots clubs with growing the game. The US Soccer Foundation was established in 1994 from World Cup profits and has since invested more than $57m in the game: http://www.ussoccerfoundation.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Soccer_Foundation

Towser - You push the memory barrow too far. I can just picture you riding your brand new bicycle along to the local park,take off your "Blades " replica shirt,remove your Nike Sports shoes,don your matching Nike boots,and official "Blades" playing strip with matching shorts lock up your mobile phone and portable computer in your Mum's latest 4 wheel drive before taking part in a 20v20 game chasing the latest FIFA ball,straight from last World Cup stock. What a bloody hope !!!!!!!!!! and yet that's what we see at countless grounds all around our country today. Old mate,times have changed and football tuition has to change as well especially with the other challenges for the interest of kids facing the game today,of that there is no doubt To get back to realism. We in Australia have been in an almost catch up state with the rest of the world due to things we all know about so I won't enumerate. Today when you attend an HAL game you can almost certainly pick out the "imported players" simply by witnessing their superior ball skills,There are a few locals who can match them of course but it has to be remembered these "imports" are not "top of the game" players but rather "tradesmen" who have sampled higher grade football. You go on to pontificate as to the value of small sided games on small pitches. Yes, they are only one step in the overall teaching process but "the Hungarian" had gone beyond that by creating not a full blown football match with referees and all but a smaller area of workplace where the "touch a ball" part of that idea was greatly accelerated as was the "fun aspect" for younger kids to "get a kick" while at the same time the opportunity to "correct" and "educate &"teach" was given in brief rest periods. This should not be confused with the 2v2, 3v3, exercises used in senior coaching in an attempt to improve the skills in 20 year + players.who had "missed out" in earlier coaching. "The Hungarian's" system was creating a fun atmosphere where really young entrants to junior football could enjoy themselves while addressing those 2 proven psychological needs in youngsters,"kick the ball" or "score a goal". ps Now go and have a shower and get back into your England shirt before going to the teenage disco.!!!!!!!!!!!! Again ,what a bloody hope.Cheers jb

jb Were stretching the memory here and I tried to think back on what as going through my head personally in the street games and later on in the park, ie was it more about me having fun and the better I got at football the more I enjoyed it, or about the team and beating another team. No doubt in my mind It was all about me as they say nowadays, so yes from that and having observed first hand ideas impregnated from adults about winning in Australia,there's no doubt in my mind fun. However lets not forget that that fun got better as I learnt the trade, but it wasn't just learning the trade I was questioning and all due respect to the Hungarian coach, it was who did the teaching. As I said I learnt from older kids and men as got older,ie not from the mouth of a coach so I learnt from observation in actual street/park games, not from training drills no matter how cleverly thought out. So to clarify what I'm basically asking is it better to learn on the job through actual game play against more knowledgeable players than to do repititive training drills with kids of your own age? Or we can do a bit of lateral thinking and say would the kids under the the Hungarian coaches workout learn more if he slipped a couple of older players in the squares every now and then. As I said many great players were produced in the past with litte coaching at least till being a teenager, yet you saw live and I saw on TV, that remarkable match between Real Madrid and Eintracht Frankfurt and I'd be certain that non of those magnificent technically adept players had ever heard of squares as kids.

You're on your Pat Malone there, unless you can produce some references to back your claims. What's the point you're trying to make? Football hasn't improved in the last ten years.

Nonsense. It's been bigger than the Egg Ball sports, yes. But, in the past, Netball always higher participation for females. Not any more In the past Swimming was the national sport; Not any more.

It's been the biggest participation for at least 35 years

Horace.- Junior football today seems to be approaching a crisis re. the availablity of grounds on which to play. In 1973 an idea was introduced into Australian football that helped the same problem immensely. The introduction of small sided games on small pitches meant that instead of 22 kids commanding a full pitch 48 kids could use 3 small pitches laid out across a "big pitch" Even that common sense approach was ignored by some budding Alex Fergusons who saw themselves as "championship" winners in a junior competition and frowned upon any changes to the 11 v 11 on a full size pitch that saw 20 kids chasing 1 ball in a physically impossible quest for such youngsters. Change did come slowly but it did come and was further emphasised with the appearance of a National Curriculum some 30 years later. Perhaps now is the time for re-examination on what makes a 4 year old kid want to play football. If handled correctly the same answers will emerge from 4 up to 9, the answers will invariably be to "score a goal" or to "kick the ball",no mention of winning cups,championships,or even beating other teams. These aims are all in the minds of much more mature people 12-14 and upwards. So should we concentrate on a "fun" doctrine that sees kids get plenty of touches to a ball or even scoring goals regularly and that being so does it have to take place in a competition where the main aim is to beat an opponent????? or should it be a Saturday,Sunday "fun time" when a concentration of skill teaching is evident as the kids are enjoying "getting a kick" or "scoring a goal". Thoughts?. Cheers jb

Towser - I don't think you thought through what I witnessed with that coach working those kids. By the way he was an Hungarian and had set up his "workplace" to replicate the conditions you describe,only in reverse. First of all you have to look at why small sided games on small pitches were introduced into the Australian coaching manual around 1973. It had been found that kids were receptive to two things when being introduced to football ,that was the love of "scoring a goal" or "getting a kick at a ball". Obviously the reduction of pitch size and "team" size increased those chances. The recommended age for that introduction to these conditions was 7-12. Today we have 4 year olds being introduced to the game,kids with the same basic aims,so what to do?. The Hungarians "workplace" was set up accordingly .He had squares of differing sizes marked out each square accommodating players according to their skill levels So 2 v 2 would play in a small square,3 v 3 in a larger square. 4 v 4 in an even larger square All squares had 4 small "goals" on each side and on his whistle,whoever was on the ball was to try and score The "workout" was astounding to witness,the kids were hollering and shouting ,getting plenty of touches and when that whistle blew a chance to "score". The coach went from square to square,calling a small rest period and demonstrating a basic "touch" skill in that period. I personally was astounded at the success he was having in creating the very "challenges " you got in your 20 v 20 games but these kids were getting far more touches than you and I got in those far off days, or better still the chance to "score" which we very very seldom got. My reason for going public with this experience is not only to gain more "workplace" for clubs but to question when should we start juniors playing in organised competitions,when it has been psychologically proven, their minds do not become receptive to that type of "playing" until around the ages of 10-12. The question-----Does a 6 year old have to play in a team,against another team with the express purpose of beating that team or is that an idea impregnated by an adult??? Thoughts?. Cheers jb

You're just being disingenuous now - the average is above 30k and they sell out the SCG occasionally. Anyway, it's getting off the point of the Football participation boom which I have agreed with. Last 2-3 decades in Sydney has seen a boom in Football participation, particularly in Juniors, an increase in AFL participation (although hardly out west) and a decrease in Rugby and league.

jb Space for playing football, when I was a lad was restricted, being brought up in the centre of industrial Sheffield. so back lanes,sides of factories were our football fields and post war bomb sites, the Germans missed the main steelworks area further to the East. Non were billiard table surfaces with cobblestones in the lanes and broken brick,glass etc on the bomb sites. So no coaching, yet the skills in the streets were IMO far better than I saw in kids here ,at least till under 12. So where did the skills come from, usually they were known, sort of passed down as the street games were a mixture of ages. So I saw an older kid using all parts of his foot for control, or flick it through his standing leg, turn control move on, utilising the restricted space to the max. Everything was to do then in those early stages with what you might call "forced ball control". As we got older the streets were not enough and we cycled out of the city a couple of kilometres to a park,sheer luxury with one massive playing area. So did kids from other areas of the city. Result a seething mass of many small sided games, but still mixed ages, so having now the ball control, passing and other aspects of the game were passed on. Not only that physicality was coming into play,as you tackled older teenagers and sometimes men. I should imagine this MO was similar on the Continent and in South America and look at the brilliant players produced from this system, pre junior coaching days. Now sure once the players got to professional clubs tactics, physical conditioning came into play , but thats all they had to add to the player, the rest came from the "Street school" of football. Can this be replicated in some form today, because I dont believe small sided games per se are the answer?

post Hoc- Your comment got me thinking. Although it is some years since I was involved in junior coaching I do wander along and watch the local kids play and noted that the small sided games on small pitches is still in vogue despite it being over 40 years since it's introduction into junior football. Now at that time it was noted that 3 "small sided pitches" could be fitted across a normal pitch and this was seen as a great benefit to the "junior game" already suffering from lack of facilities,(that being measured by 22 x 8 year olds taking up a full pitch, where, after 5 minutes they were totally exhausted chasing the ball,or disinterested because they never got a touch at the ball. Perhaps it is time to radicalise our thinking even more for as the "starting age" for playing is reduced we are getting to where the fundamentals of the game are being taught and this leads me to an occasion where I watched a well qualified coach working with 16 or so kids in a small area. That "small area" consisted of various squares in which he played 2v2 ,3v3,4v4 with very small goals posted on each side of the square.On his whistle the kids (who were having multiple touches of the ball) had to try and "score" a goal from wherever they were in the square.The kids being "used" were all in the 6-9 age group and most importantly they appeared to be "having a ball" chasing and touching the ball in such an enclosed area,in other words having -----fun,that most important ingredient in introducing a youngster to the game. After all, who is it that sets up the ideas of "cups"."leagues","games","results","winning"or "losing"???? not a 6 year old whose main motivation is to kick the ball or score a goal (the main ingredients of what I saw that coach teach) but perhaps the parent ?????? It maybe time to revolutionise how our 4-7 year olds are introduced to football. Thoughts????? Cheers jb

It appears to have with gallop saying they are completely overhauling the bans process.

A bit more detail emerging plus some very positive comments from key stakeholders: http://www.couriermail.com.au/sport/football/a-league/aleague-crisis-averted-as-clubs-to-be-handed-greater-control-after-meeting-with-ffa/news-story/d5fb9f724f96ca5286aee45f08c7d6f2 Let's hope the fan forum goes just as well!!

Yeah I keep hearing that about the Swans, problem is when 30,000 attend a swans match that's every single one of them. When 10,000 NRL fans attend a match there's another 100,000 who couldn't be bothered turning up. Can't use the laziness of NRL fans to try and claim AFL is the most popular sport in Sydney, it's not even 3rd.

Agree

Yes, I support your argument.. Football is definitely underdone in this grounds investment between codes.

Foundations shaky is a weird thing to say. This was the more telling quote "“With the wisdom of the benefit of hindsight, it feels like we could have dealt with this sooner, and dealt with it differently."

to break it down for you al is the investment in space for soccer equivalent to the investment in space for the oval ball games on a participation per head basis, i do not know

My point is - How to not make friends is trumpet along about your game in front of others who mightn't be supporters..if you are trying to win supporters its the wrong tactic. BTW speaking of how not run a Football federation explain this amateur effort - Wellington Phoenix not wearing Black and Gold in Auckland the other day causing a colour clash...

BREAKING NEWS FIRST RELEASE FROM TODAYS TALKS.. http://www.fourfourtwo.com/au/news/lowy-tells-league-bosses-foundations-feel-shaky-today#:UCH-wqq5pWPMTA