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John Galley Interview

John Galley Interview

Wakering Sports Webmaster27 Mar 2019 - 10:08
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Wakering Sports are extremely strong at promoting youth within the club.....

Media and Press Officer Rob Lilley managed to catch up with John Galley, the Sports Youth Liaison Officer and Chairman of Great Wakering Colts. Rob wanted to discuss the Colts in general and how they develop their young players.

What kind of time commitment should I expect for my child?
Depending on the age group there is normally one training session a week and one game

What's your main concern? Educating the youngsters or educating the coaches?
These both go hand in hand. Educating the youngsters will only come from the coaches. Our club, in conjunction with the FA are very proactive in making sure that our coaches and managers are all correctly certified and this gives us the best possible platform to coach the youngsters both on and off the field when they are in our care.

What do you look for in young players?
In our youngest players we look for enthusiasm and enjoyment and monitor how they love playing the game. As the players get older, they express a wish to play in certain positions and then when they are in youth football we look for people that want to enjoy football, develop their game and help them achieve this to the best of our ability.

Would encouraging young footballers to take up Futsal help improve their technical development?
Futsal is not something that I have been involved with at all ,but a lot of clubs do participate in this. We have had individual teams take part in this and I suppose from the technical element it can only help improvements.

Are schools in Wakering being encouraged to work with Great Wakering Colts to create a better technical players or is the focus still on school competitions and winning the next trophy/tournament?
The schools in Great Wakering is a Primary school and works to strict curricular sports directives as the children are starting from 4 years old. We have a good link with the school as they provide our home pitches for 5 & 7 aside up to the ages and are always happy to have this connection with them. We have a lot of players at our club from surrounding schools and areas but the focus and ethos of our club is promoted as strongly as possible.

Are youth football leagues aimed to try develop young players' skills or just to try make them have fun?
At the very youngest levels there are no leagues as such, as it is all about enjoyment and learning. The leagues tend to start at youth football which is 12-18 year olds and these are shown as competitive tables. The players at these age groups are encouraged to express themselves through their football and I am a strong believer in having different divisions as it creates various levels for players to be able to learn, enjoy and play football at their own pace and development speeds. Obviously the higher the division the more competitive it becomes and we have produced lots of players that have gone on to pro academies and also local senior football.

Do you think there is now so much info available 4 coaches that there is a risk of losing focus on the player(s)?
There is a mine field of information for coaches now, however the FA four corner model is all geared up towards the players and making sure the coaches are educated in delivering this. The players must always be the focus of any club along with the parents as these are the people that make a club

Do you agree there is a missing link between academy and grassroots football? If so, what is the solution?
Totally agree on this. Acadamies are brutal, but this is the nature of the beast. Certain academies will sign a 9 year old player only to drop him as soon as a better 9 year old comes along and I have seen how this can affect players. This then has an affect on that lad and people can fall out of love with the game. Grassroots football is there to bring people of all abilities together to learn and play football, the academys will try and cherry pick the best players available at any cost. There is a link to a degree as a lot of Pro clubs will call us to enquire about players and we have great links with these so working together and more closely like this is important for the welfare of the players

How strongly would you value position specific coaching if the service was readily available at a club?
This is very important to us as a club. AT GWCYFC we provide a goal keeper coach for all our age groups twice a month at no cost to the players. This has proved extremely popular with al of our teams. As the players get older and are in youth football beginning to plan for the adult set up this would be an extremely handy thing to have going on as can develop specific groups of players that want to play specific positions.

How do we get youth players to move into adult football?
There's a drop off and a gap that needs to be bridged. Fortunately with the Colts we are lucky enough to have links with Wakering Sports who are extremely strong on the youth promotion from within the club. We have already had progression from the Colts to Wakering Sports U21's and currently a whole team and management has progressed from the Colts and is playing in the Borough Combination League and will go onto achieve great things this season. The facility now to have a club wanting to progress these lads is superb as I am always in contact with our U21 manager so the boys can start joining in session when they are 16 and getting the matchday experience over a period of time to make an easier and smoother transition.

If you had unlimited budget, what would be the 1 thing you’d spend it on?
Wow, what a question... The right thing to say is the progression and development of facilities, education and training for all players, coaches and parents involved at Great Wakering Colts FC and Wakering Sports FC.

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