[ 0114 242 4244 ] info@itsagoal.net

This is a comment posted to the  Football Association  Football development manager ,

Nick,  I have not met you however  I have met all your predecessors starting with Charles Hughes and Robin Russell.  I feel a little responsible as I created Mini Soccer and provided the first portable goal in a bag in 1989 (not the Samba goal but the more engineered ITSA Goal posts)  I brought the concept to the FA  with a franchise system for the very young but all the advice I gave at the outset was ignored.It seems the feed back I have read  on the development of  junior football seems to indicate that has not changed.The people that know and have the experience and the answers seem to be ignored , not consulted enough or listened to. There are many very good people out at junior club level and there are some not so good but that is the mix in life and football.  When I introduced mini soccer to the FA with our Soccerfun and Soccerstart schemes we explained that it would explode girls and women’s football  which it has,  we explained that a strategy would be needed with regard to local authority pitches to accommodate this growth ,follow up strategy and introduction into 11 a side and league structures would be needed and had this been done then the 9v9 system may well have not been required. The proof will be seen in the future but I do not see that as the problem.  I agree with other comments  grass roots money could have been used differently  and may be should have gone into local and district councils to improve the grass football pitches around the country making them flat, drain properly and have proper line marking not weed killer ditches. Money could also  have been made available to  established clubs to help them take out long leases,develop their own grounds and playing surfaces.  What we actually have is fantastic very very expensive  3G pitches and a plan to do more and more.  May be if  you looked in the afternoons at these pitches (and very soon in the evenings as no one can afford to use them) the use these actually have.  Our local club cannot afford £90 for half an hour on such a surface…..and frankly what is the point as at the week end they will be playing on a surface that bears no resemblance to where they are supposed to train.  I have a lot of sympathy for the football club volunteers as what it is all about is the FA wanting to exercise complete control over football  in the UK. The FA were set up to just govern the game and the develop rules and were not set up to use the game as a method to generate  financial gain.  Mini Soccer was developed by me  for  kids from the age of seven upwards and it was the success of this that drew in the younger nursery players as they wanted to do what there older brothers were doing.  It was simple to add inexpensive safe  8×4 nursery goals for these younger children before stepping up to 12’x6′ that there older brothers were playing with. The latest is to develop Futsal this might be the answer as the other countries play that…so FIFA  now want to control football that is not  11 a side. The truth is that it was  just footballers playing indoors and the goals in the halls were handball goals and that is why they are different ….but to have Futsal & mini soccer goals is just duplication when Mini soccer goals are the better size goalposts for children.
It is simple and always has been…..get inspirational individuals with the children when they are starting to kick a football at the age of two (look at the picture of George Best at the age of two)  preferably not FA coaches and let the children  dribble to their hearts content with their friends encourage positive play , ball control, basic skills and get the kids back to feeling that the favorite toy is a football not FIFA 14 and a mobile phone. Everyone should look at the video of Lionel Messi  at a young age ….from the kick off he just went straight for goal….any one in his way he just tried to go round…..would that ever be possible with a so called FA coach, I think not.  Free the youngsters up give them the freedom to express themselves  not all will want to dribble some will want to stop players from dribbling  and that is football….. the system was given to the FA twenty five years ago but it was ignored and actually blocked…. I have been involved in football since 1957  at all levels  and I despair.  It does seem that Italy and Spain may be following  but the game today is in the main less entertaining … training sessions are dominated by passing on carpets  and games at the top level reflect that.  My belief is FIFA 14 is doing more  to  influence  young footballers than  FA basic coaches that have not played the game at a higher level and may not have enough experience or charisma.  I am not tarring everyone with the same brush there are some very good people out  in kids football, I have met them,and the game prospers by the mix. Unless a change happens with the very young  starters in the game ( players can be educated about passing at a later age  when they have the dribbling skills but it cannot be added in a player in my opinion. It is instinctive skill like learning to walk and learning to talk.  If you learn to walk you can then develop that into running  but only when you know how to walk first and if you can talk you can learn to write!

Good luck with the 9v9 initiative  but please encourage  teams to use lighter safer goalposts ( ban heavy steel freestanding goalposts at grass roots level) ideally with  aluminum crossbars as the plastic  longer crossbars dip and deaden the rebound  and players will not react properly  to footballs hitting the posts.