I've had this note about structuring junior football on my phone for 6 months now so it's time to do something with it, although I might not make many friends with this post.
For memory someone asked on social media somewhere about what to do with them at training or how to do whatever...I can't remember but this is what I typed in my notes anyway without actually responding to it!
QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF AS COACH
- Who is there?
- Why are they there?
- Where will they be in the future?
- What do you want them to do?
- What do they want to do?
In a super quick question and answer session you'll have a junior/youth age group of 25 players spanning 2, maybe 3, specific ages but close enough to be lumped together for the most part.
They are going to be there for a wide variety of reasons such as to learn about footy, play with friends, to make new friends, to feel/be active and even from being "pushed" from parents into it.
I'll make up some figures here but in the future 90% will still be playing in 1 - 2 years time, 60 - 70% will still be playing in 3 - 4 years time and probably less than 50% will still be playing in 5 years time.
All up you might be lucky to have 5 players from today that play right through juniors to seniors for your club and less than 1% chance of anyone of them making an AFL list at any stage.
Now as a coach you want them to sit, be quite, listen and then do drills where they stand in line and waiting impatiently, losing concentration until you call them into sit them back down only to send them back out to wait in more lines.
As the coach you then judge those players on the training environment you have provided for them, whether that is good, bad or something in between.
The kids/players all just want to have fun and be with their friends - none of the stuff you want to do at all.
A coaches ability to retain junior players year after year is their most important coaching tactic so the BIG QUESTION is now how do we make sport/footy more fun - it's already fun, that's why they turn up every week.
The BIG QUESTION is how do we stop adults interfering and removing fun from kids sport/footy and turn the focus from teaching them how to win into teaching them how to move and play anything sport related in as many different ways as possible, not just in football terms.
Already this should probably get you thinking about how you could things differently from now on.
This could really be a book with all the stuff I have on youth sport but for now I'll leave you with a very brief look at how my junior training structure might look like if I was in charge of a specific aged team or in a junior president/development type of role at club level.
If I was in charge of all junior football in Australia than I would change all football competitions to mimic something like this because:
***Smaller Dimensions + Less Players = More Touches Per Player***
So now it's...
***More Touches Per Player = More Enjoyment = Greater Retention***
I'll also add that some sports develop sport qualities better than football does so I would also use them at the footy club to build those qualities in junior players such as basketball for awareness/agility, gymnastic for body awareness/coordination and non footy games to teach the basics of invasion sports, such as footy.
This can all be done next season IF you lay out the expectations to parents as I know my own son would not give a shit if he didn't even see a footy at all at footy training, and I'm positive he's not the only kid like that these days.
UNDER 8's
- Pure Enjoyment via Games
- Teams not exceeding 6v6
- Dimensions not exceeding 30m x 20m
UNDER 10's
- Games
- Introduction to Basic Skills
- Teams not exceeding 8v8
- Dimensions not exceeding 40m x 30m
UNDER 12's
- Increased Skill Development
- Introduction to Small Sided Games
- Teams not exceeding 12v12
- Dimensions not exceeding 45m x 40m
UNDER 14's
- Increased Skill Development
- Introduction to Basic Tactics
- Small Sided Games
- Teams not exceeding 14v14
- Dimensions not exceeding 80 x 60m
UNDER 16's
- Skill Development + Tactical Development
- Small Sided Games
- Introduction to game scenarios
- Team not exceeding 16v16
- Full Ground
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