FOOTY POST COVID-19 PART 1 (FREE CONTENT)

With the ever-hopeful impending commencement of local/amateur footy somewhere in the not-to distant future, here are my thoughts on bringing your footbal club back to its regular programming under unprecedented circumstances.

A lot of the following issues aren't new by any stretch but this pandemic has really put a spotlight on what the true deficiences are in local/amateur football and as has been showed by people all over the world in the last 8 weeks or so, a rebirth through forced innovation can, and will, save a lot of football clubs, many of who are already struggling mightily.

Some of the issues will be more related to junior football then senior and vivce versa but I won't specifiy either way as all football clubs are in different positions in their different age groups and levels of play.

I'll leave it up to you to decicde what's needed by your football club and to take action.

REGAINING PLAYER NUMBERS

Throughout this time off I have had severe reservations about our men's football program going forward if football does not get played in 2020.

For a low resource club it's not quite a year by year proposotion like some clubs, but we suffered a drop in player numbers last year compared to past years, and then had another 15 or so not commit to this year from last year's senior preniership winning team.

As always we have been able to organically recruit plenty of players of varying quality but without them getting to play for us in the first place, not even a practice game, will they return in the middle of winter?

Will senior players non-comittal in January, fully commit in May?

Who knows.

If they don't then we will potentially struggle to field a reserves team consistently in 2020.

My suggestion would be to put out your feelers to all potential players again right now like you would in November, essentially "re-recruiting" every player all over again.

Shitty I know but this is what you just might have to do or you could just sit on your hands and assume they'll just return.

I know what I would be doing.

PLAYER AVAILABILITY

I am certain most football clubs will have a drop off in player numbers for this year which could easily extend to next year and beyond.

It's not often that someone stops playing football then returns again in the short term.

I don't know if players, and past players, having been starved of football, will be keen to take it back up.

I don't know if existing players will find it worthwhile to play potentially 8 - 10 games then finals or simply think it's easier to take the year off and maybe try again next year.

In some instances it can only take 1 player to not to play for another to not to play for another player to not play and all of a sudden you've got a mass exodus on your hands in the toughest climate local/amateur sport has ever seen.

All of this means that for the players you do end up getting back, player availability should be 1, 2 and 3 on your priority list.

For this season at least I would also forgo how competitive we could be in favor of maintaining 2 teams on the park each week.

This may mean you need to investigate such things as:

• Finding out why players play and cater to them individually as best you can.
• Finding out what each players expectations are in regards to playing time, position, level of play, off-feild requirments etc.
• Asking them what they would like at the club to make it as enjoyable as possible including training nights, game days and functions.

DEVELOP A GAME MODEL

Here I go again, the bloody Game Model!

NOW is the perfect time to implement a Game Model.

Why?

Because you might be forced to because of the limited training time we might get before games start back up.

By developing a model I am positive you can fast track what you would like to teach your players from a tactical point of view.

To go 1 better, developing it in conjunction with your leadership group can fast track taching it even more as they can help you, the head coach, in training it.

It does not have to be complicated but it does have to be simple to explain, train and carry out on game day.

If you want help with this then hit me up.

FITNESS LEVELS

Everyone thinks you need a high level of fitness to play football which is partly true but what exactly is a high level of fitness?

Is a super 2km time?

No way.

Is a great Yo-Yo score.

Try again.

Both of those tests and all other tests train only 1 of the 4 Co-Actives of Performance being:

1. Physical
2. Psychological
3. Tactical
4. Technical

It's now clear to see you can put 30mins of each training session towards the phycial aspect of football and "mistaking activity for acheivement" thinking that it's something that transfers to games but you'd be wrong.

The physical Co-Active, being the one most frequently trained by most footballers already has by-far the lowest potential for improvement and would sit no better then 3rd in my order of priorities.

With minimal time contraints, which we'll have when and if we re-start,  you have 1 rule in regards to fitness work:

"Only Do What's Neccesary"

What this means is that you are FAR BETTER working on operational outputs (game outputs) rather then focusing on mechanical outputs (training outputs with no constraints).

I'm not talking running with balls because that can mean cone to cone drills only, not exactly perfect albeit on the right track...sort of.

I'm talking small sided games along with game scenario's and situations left up to players to solve on their own, mixed with tactical stuff from your Game Model.

If players feel they want to do more "fitness" work as it's been drummed into them forever and a day, then provide them with something specific but then you bring in another rule you HAVE to follow:

"Don't Do Today What Wrecks Tomorrow"

Part 2 tomorrow.