Category: Coaching practice

Change or transformation?

If you will indulge me for one more post, I would like to revisit coach education and the development of the sports coach. Over the past three-years I have referred to various learning needs, a desire to improve my practice and become more effective in what I do. In doing so, I have highlighted the value, or not of the previous year’s online culture of coach interactions and the sharing of knowledge as a form of CPD. Many of these, as previously alluded to, have included the sharing of the lived experience and the individual patterns of learning of some of our ‘top’ basketball coaches. Indeed, I have taken a great deal from these engagements, but question how they translate into anything meaningful within my own practice. This is to say, I have found them insightful and interesting. I have compared some of the individual incidents within the various journeys. For example, the ‘leap’ from playing to coaching and the missed opportunities and gained experiences that make up the development journey of our coaching fraternity.

In a very separate but related activity, I sat down to a final dissertation supervision meeting with a current year 3 student. The focus of their project was the value of a coaching degree as a form of coach education. They had engaged the formal, nonformal and informal framework first put forward by Coombs and Ahmed (1974) and framed a degree as a formal activity. This got me thinking, and in a rather casual and non-scientific exercise I attempted to reflect on all the Podcasts I had listened to over the course of the last eighteen months and analyse the idiosyncratic nature of coach education. The short report to this thinking highlights a transition from playing to coaching as a way to remain in the game. It points to level 1 and 2 coach awards, and in some cases, level 3 as a means of gaining credibility and certification as a coach. And perhaps most prominent of all is networking, the sharing of ideas and engaging with fellow coaches to develop our practice. In other examples, coaches have been brave in their career choices and moved towns, cities, and even countries in pursuit of a ‘professional’ career. Unfortunately, most cite a lack of support, a structure that could possibly embrace and guide their aspirations towards professionalisation.

However, none of this is new, in fact, the Coaching Task Force (2002) and previous written attempts to report on the ‘state’ of coaching in the UK (NGB’s holding on to antiquated beliefs – Coaching Matters, 1991; standards of coaching be elevated to a professional standing – Vision for Coaching, 2001) have long discussed the professionalisation of coaching. As a result, the CTF recommended the implementation of a national certificate, a license to practice and a review of UK Coaching (then scUK). Perhaps in response to the then interest in coaching, Taylor and Garrett (2008) identified a number of characteristics of a professional field, including professional education, a career structure and pathway, and role clarity. Thus, as a return question, can basketball respond to these and other recommendations from the past twenty years with confidence? I suggest we must reflect on the breadth of employment opportunities available to the basketball coach. The EABL and DiSE (previously AASE) products have created access and opportunity through the emergence of Basketball Academies. Indeed, we have some excellent examples of partnerships with schools, FE providers and NBL / BBL teams. This being said, we do not have a professional league that retains external interest and is of a size that offers multiple employment opportunities. As a result, we must ask ourselves, what do our career structure and development pathways look like? Do we know what a professional basketball coach is? In short, we are good at theorising about the practice of sport coaching within basketball but less so when it comes to engaging in the structures and processes that lead to a more professionalised way of thinking and doing.

Coombs, P.H., & Ahmed, M. (1974). Attacking rural poverty: How non-formal education can help, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.

DCMS (2002). The Coaching task force-Final report. London: DCMS.

Sports Council (1991). Coaching Matters: A review of coaching and coach education in the United Kingdom. London: Sports Council (GB).

Taylor, B., & Garratt, D. (2008). The professionalisation of sports coaching in the UK: Issues and conceptualisations.

UK Sport (2001). The UK Vision for Coaching. London: UK Sport.

A return to all things coaching

‘Return to play’ has become a popular term associated with the reappearance of everything we used to know and enjoy. In fact, the phrase can be found in much of the guidance on offer from the various bodies tasked with governance and development. As we continue towards an active state, I wonder what our ‘return to coaching’ looks like? As previously discussed here, we have enjoyed a new way of doing, one that embraced the wealth of online content that was suddenly made available to us. Originally, the approach served to fill a void, that of actually coaching and turned our attentions to sharing ideas, the lived experience and upskilling our knowledge base. However, it then morphed into something more, the opportunity to learn, share and debate content, ways of doing and philosophical positions of interest in a large community of practice. Coach education could be seen to have evolved into a coach facing resource.

The terms associated with upskilling our coach community are contested and often make for confusing reading. This said, coach development, education and learning can all be considered, in the broadest terms, as a way to improve what we do. The idea of learning was previously conceptualised into three fields, a framework that continues to be employed in many academic journals and text today. The terms formal, informal and nonformal (Coombs & Ahmed, 1974) are accepted as forms of learning engaged in to improve our practice. I submit that much of what we have engaged with over the ‘COVID months’ is perhaps not as meaningful or appropriate to our coaching environments as we first thought. What do I mean? I have personally taken a great deal from the lived experience-based podcasts that I have listened to over the past several months, however, I question how they will reinstall my sense of coaching confidence and self-efficacy.

As I continue to ‘fight’ through my own deficiency in a bid to improve my practice and move to a state of effectiveness I see a very different landscape in front of me. I see young basketball players exhibiting very different levels of confidence, motivation, and a reduced willingness to engage in the same way. A diminished level of skill. And, perhaps most surprising of all, I see a declining pledge to all that we do. Perhaps this is due to the time away and the formation of new ideas, connections, and commitments. With this in mind, I find myself searching for new ways of doing the relationships that have been central to my practice. New ways of delivery, and new ways of supporting the young people in my charge. In short, there is a ‘gap’ in my practice, a void that leaves me disconnected from all things coaching and I wish to ‘fill’ it, to regain my ‘mojo’ and continue from the point at which I left.

This weekend sees a ‘return to play’, actual competition (Central Venue League). I wonder what the impact of our forced hiatus will be. What will our behaviours look like? Will we be overly instructional and directive. Will our coaching be free from the guiding light of the emotional intelligence spotlight as we ‘fight’ to demonstrate our value and regain a sense of our coach identity. I suspect that there will be evidence to support the presence of ‘over coaching’, that many of us will try to ‘sprint’ to our ‘old’ coaching selves in a bid to exonerate our own ontological sense of being. I am just not that sure that the results of such behaviour will be positive. In fact, who knows what the weekend will bring. I certainly do not have all, or even some of the answers. What I have is a nervousness, one that I am sure I will overcome very quickly, but one that is there, nevertheless.

Coach Perspective: Arranging our view

For anyone that has read a tweet, blog entry or FP post published by yours truly, the sight of a fairway or trail picture is a constant to my ramblings on all matters coaching. The pictures are typically from the same golf course or MTP route and represent my multiple views, the way I frame reality from differing perspective. This is to say, each day presents a new challenge, a new problem to solve and a new way of navigating the 150-yard approach or the 15-foot drop-off.

On my drive down the A15 at 05:05 this morning I mussed over my latest offering, the sunrise drenched 13th fairway of my members club when it suddenly dawned on me. As coaches we operate in a socially constructed reality shaped by the actors and agencies that frequent our space and the multiple influences garnered by our experiential interactions. As basketball coaches we are all presented with similar issues, that of steering the 3-dimensional dance in a bid to be effective in our practice and affect positive change in the people we work with. Yes, there are levels of operation that demand subtle differences in the way we approach our coaching, but the overarching challenges are the same. Where we differ is the way we chose to tackle the challenge, how we see our charges and approach the task at hand.

My epiphany was one of social constructionism, a joined-up reality that paints a picture of coaching practice. Indeed, I am pretty sure (I don’t know for certain of course) that the UK basketball coaching community share similar views, ideologies, and ways of doing that align in some way, shape or form. This must be true as through our interactions, exchanges and debates we share ideas, learn, and teach when and where possible, and are afforded multiple opportunities to build on what we know. Yet we are all different and approach our practice in different ways. Cushion refers to this as coaching ‘in’ and ‘through’ our practice. In other words, we engage in behaviours and models of coaching as a way to solve problems and in act learning.

Perhaps, with this in mind, it is time to come together and say that what we do and how we do it ‘depends’ on the context, the level of play/competition, and the situation we are faced with. Perhaps it is time to stop worrying about ‘what’ we are doing (to a point of course) and concentrate more on why we are doing it. What do I mean? As a coach interested in what we do during our interactions I utilise the term ‘behaviours’ as a way to describe distinct actions performed by the coach at any given moment. What I gain from this is a frequency model, Coach A demonstrated x number of instructions during the timeout phases of competition. I think this is an exciting, and important starting point, one that builds on forty-plus years of systematic research into the behaviours of the coach. However, I hope to move to a very specific setting, that of basketball competition and realise exactly what it is we are doing and why.

My research to-date tells me that each coach is very different, their behavioural profiles (if you wish to use that term) paint a divergent picture of the same setting – Regional Standard Basketball Competition. Does this mean that one is more or less effective than the next practitioner? I doubt that is the case. So, what does it tell us? Much like my fairways and trails, coaching practice is a socially constructed phenomena, it is idiosyncratic, chaotic, and very much the ‘messy swamp land’ Jones described it as. It is also a similar reality, one that we must navigate together as a way of creating new meaning and new ways to make each other more effective in our individual way of doing.

We were on a break: returning to effective practice

Week three of my return to the court and we are on a break! It is the May Bank Holiday, and our venue is closed. Reflecting on the two sessions since the ‘Return to Play’ leaves me divided. I am currently working with a wide range of colleagues, coaches with storied backgrounds, levels of experience and years of engagement. In fact, I feel quite lucky to have the opportunity to put forward my position, politick and muse over the pedagogical conundrum of ‘how to coach’. Indeed, we often move between variations of constructivist and behaviourist sensibilities in a bid to reflect our own knowledge and understanding of effective coaching. As a result, my intentions are clear, I have an enthusiasm for a return that engenders a greater athlete voice and moves me to the ‘shadows’, a position that is well documented within my planning, yet still my execution is left wanting.

My research over the past six years as led me to many corners of the debate, reasons for and against. However, there is an overwhelming presence, an evidence base that tugs on the thinking of many and puts forward a strong argument for autonomy supportive pedagogy. An approach that is underpinned by effective questioning, places the athlete at the centre of the process and reflects a symbiotic relationship. I would argue that many coaches are now aware of Jowett’s position that coaching is a relational activity, one that thrives on interpersonal connectivity. I consider myself to be a follower and have tried to develop my ability to engage and converse with athletes at their level, in their time and on their terms – a way of doing that I was introduced to as a National Teaching Fellow. In short if we want to engage students in a topic we must visit ‘their world’.

To this end, my questioning has improved, and I have worked hard to reduce the concept of ‘tell’ from my behavioural profile and embrace divergent probes in a bid to engage the ‘whole’ athlete. However, when faced with adversity, challenge in the form of a lack of understanding I found myself battling to resist the ‘tell phenomenon’, the low road to short term gain. Afterall, regardless of how we frame our practice, we are all contributors to the Player Pathway, and as such, we each have a responsibility to support elite and personal referenced excellence. However, to be effective, we must continue to practice from a place of authenticity, the ‘true’ coach-self, which takes me back through my many posts to the question of philosophy, why do we do what we do and how do our values and beliefs shape the behaviour we put forward as our true coach-self. Cassidy et al. (2009) referred to the concept as “a set of principles that guide an individual’s practice” (p57). The suggestion being that an effective session will reflect why we do what we do.

As I ponder the content for my third return to practice, I see chaos, games, conversations and challenges that are healthy, spirited, and most importantly of all, are underpinned by the concept of a motivational climate of learning. I see it, I can plan it, I absolutely believe in it. My remaining challenge is to effectively recreate the scene in my practice and through my behaviours.

Take two

Second session back, my ‘coaching legs’ are just about stable and the initial anxieties of session one all but vanished. My intention, from the conclusion of session one was to improve on my delivery, have more courage to implement the whole of my plan as opposed to just the small sided games. I wanted to see the constraints applied to the players exploration of tactical knowledge and execution and promote a two-way challenge between coach and athlete. In short, I wanted to foster a new way of thinking, one that reveals basketball players as more than empty vessels awaiting content through instruction and direction.

During my nine to five I have occasion to deliver different sports. This week I had engaged with volleyball and introduced several concepts associated with differentiation to enable students to explore coaching pedagogy, and in particular the application of the STEPS principle. We played volleyball with balls of various shapes and sizes, we reduced the court parameters and the number of participants per team, and most controversial of all, we introduced the ‘catch’ as a recognised shot. Our small-sided games were meaningful, spirited and a great deal of fun. I wanted to apply the same thinking and doing to my basketball practice. So, with a pep in my step I marched into session two ready to continue my courageous endeavour, one that would separate us from the traditional doing of historic basketball practice. Unfortunately, it was not to be, I was greeted with a new presence to our practice setting, a higher being, one that insisted that we “watch them play” in a bid to identify and select ‘talent’ for our flagship programme.

I did my best to interact with players, discuss their previous years experiences why they waited for their turn. I gained some satisfaction in the fact that the sixty or so young people were playing sport, they were engaged in what I had once called a three-dimensional dance, and all seemed happy to be back playing. I on the other hand wanted more for them. I had planned, anticipated, and pictured a very different two hours of learning and exploration. Perhaps that was my coach-centred self framing the ‘perfect’ practice environment? I hope not. I merely wanted to return to practice and employ the actions and reactions deemed appropriate within a coach setting.

I left practice less than satisfied, disappointed in my inability to ‘push back’, to challenge convention and move us to a more contemporary way of doing. I sat and reflected on what had passed. The young basketball players, for the most part were smiling, happy, sometimes loud, and all the time playing or waiting to play. Surely that should be the victory? I wasn’t so sure. I retreated to my ‘position statement’, my reason for coaching and for appointing myself as coach. I saw fun, respect, honesty, effortful engagement, and learning. It might have been chaotic, but it was very close to be all of the things I strive for. It just looked different. Much of the associated research literature refers to coaching in this vein. Perhaps the session was more of a success than I wish to admit? Who knows?

The road back to coaching

Like much of the world (I imagine) the pandemic has given me pause for thought, an opportunity to reflect on my coach-self in a bid to define, and perhaps more importantly, redefine my coach identity. To begin with (lockdown 1.0) I engaged in podcasts, Zoom calls, individual conversations and additional reading as a way to embrace the gift of time and improve my practice in the absence of practice. It was exciting, in fact, I wrote pages and pages of notes, ‘to do’ lists and references to further self-help, instructional and biographical material. If nothing else, I was going to be more informed, knowledgeable and ready to re-enter the hardtops of West Yorkshire. The problem was, I was doing a great deal of theorising and no practice, I was holding on to volumes of information with no opportunity to explore, discover or reflect on my actions and reactions. Instead, I started to muse over my coach-identity, who my coach-self was and what purpose my coaching served.

Many of my engagements with lockdown learning material had reflected contact with the lived experience, biographical journeys through the coaching lives of many practitioners. Indeed, I too had shared my story, and in doing so, I uncovered a reality yet to be recognised. I was a part-time coach, I entered and exited the domain with little more than six to eight hours of exposure to the coach-athlete interactions I enjoyed. For many years I have sought the title of coach, chasing voluntary positions in a bid to gain recognition and be seen as a coach of standing. In support of this goal, I have enjoyed various modes of learning, education and upskilling in a bid to add credibility to my coach title. However, in the midst of a forced hiatus I found myself re-prioritising, returning to family and friends and indulging in secondary activities such as mountain biking and golf. In short, my coach-self had retreated in a bid to allow me time and space to reimagine my practice.

Some 13-months later and I walked through the arena doors to a crowd of young people, there was a hustle and excitement in the air, everybody appeared relieved to be back on the hardwood and ready to reengage in the three-dimensional artistry we call ‘Ballin’. I had sat the previous evening contemplating my return, diagramming our practice and theorising my contribution. I was keen to move away from blocked practice and promote a more variable version of learning. One that I had mused over, promoted within my contribution to the Player Development Framework, and now was excited to implement. Williams and Hodges (2005) introduce the concept of game intelligence, an overarching term that captures the importance of player anticipation and decision-making. I too had reported many times on the need to promote and encourage basketball players to become independent thinking athletes and reject the overt instructional behaviours exhibited by many during competition. This was my chance to be true to my thinking.

I drew a breath, expelled through my Wilson whistle and called the crowd to attention. I was suddenly very aware of the multiple eyes and attentions focused in my direction. I scanned the room, smiled and with great pleasure, welcomed myself and co practitioners back to the world of coaching basketball.

Lockdown: Developing the Coach-Self

Amidst the chaos and turmoil that has been and continues to be our pandemic experience, stories of who we are, our strength of mind and inner character present themselves across our preferred media outlets. We see examples of determination run free across the open spaces, connected networks and shared narratives of the World Wide Web. Indeed, among it all I too have been drawn in to the new norm, and as a result, jump to engage in the next Zoom or Skype call, an MS Teams clinic, and whatever is on offer in an attempt to develop self. In short, this new time and space we have been granted has allowed us to construct professional networks and to pursue visions of the effective coach-self, the very self I have waxed lyrically over in the months prior to the pandemic world and in my own corner of the web. However, I now wish to pause and consider the value of these experiences and to question exactly what it is I have gained from the new order.

The associated research literature tells us that coaches develop through a blend of informal, formal and non-formal means, and that central to this brocolage of learning is the lived experience of the practicing coach. We may wish to frame this as workplace affordance, a concept that provides us with access and opportunity to career development through our observations and experiences as a practicing coach. Indeed, much of my own research reflects this form of learning and a personal desire from each of my research participants to engage in observations and conversations as a way to clarify their understanding of the coaching process. Our latest non-formal endeavour promotes the use of social media as a way to connect with the lived experiences of others and to build meaning from their stories. Certainly, within the personal narratives we can find creativity, passion and a willingness to share what they do and why they do it. The question is, can we find learning within the experiences of others, and if so, how do we transfer this new knowledge to our own practice environment?

Non-formal learning has been situated as a prominent form of coach development, a means of advancement that has been reported to hold the most value to the practice  of the sports coach. It comes in various shapes and sizes and is often described as a clinic, seminar or webinar. This mode of development reflects the collective needs and wants of the targeted subgroup and provides opportunities for each member to interpret information through their own contextual lens. Thus, the process of learning rest with the individual and the subsequent interpretation and conceptualisation of their working knowledge. This personal agency is what moves the coach-self to engage with the lived experience of others and to successfully dissect the narrative in order to inform and shape their own practice.

Returning to our new order and the emergent provision of ‘Question & Answer’ sessions via a Zoom call, can we say with a degree of confidence that this organised and semi-systematic approach to a ‘coach conversation’ has helped to develop our coach-self? Certainly, I believe it fair and just to describe the content of the provision as a form of proximal guidance, identifying what is and isn’t known. In fact, interaction with various master coaches from around the world has been situated as a valuable means of coach development. With this in mind, I would like to position the experience as a valuable contribution to my professional development and would encourage the UK basketball coach community to pause and reflect on the musings of the knowledgeable others. In doing so, the coach-self can begin to interpret the many messages shared within the conversations and begin to construct meaning that is both personal and important to them and their context. For example, the notes I have made throughout the lockdown include consideration of communication, what I do resonating with my athletes, being curious in all that I do, and the importance of planning. The next stage for my development as a coach is to interpret these messages and frame them within my own context, something I employ us all to do.

1st Quarter Success…

My planning revolves around four quarters, each being a blend of micro, meso and macro consideration, and as such, focused on individual, team and tactical markers. For example, our first quarter focus breaks down individual roles in both advantage and disadvantage situations, and at both ends of the floor. I tend to keep it simple, three defensive rules and five offensive principles as a means of guiding everything we do, and I do mean everything. I believe that having consistent cues, language that offers us all a frame of reference keeps the messaging consistent and supports the production of congruous performance in each Moment of the Game.

Today’s game represented the end of quarter one, a quarter where we had attempted to develop an understanding of our three and five philosophy, our identity and the individual roles assigned to each Moment of the Game, and agreed at the beginning of the season. I don’t believe that these eight areas of focus are in any way ground breaking or indeed innovative. In fact, I am guessing that colleagues would refer to them as ‘bread & butter’, the stable elements of invasion sport. However, I have stuck to these ideas throughout my coaching, and, at one point, I actually placed them within a framework. I referred to this as our ‘System of Life’ (SoL).  I felt that each element of the framework could equally serve to guide us through any situation. For example, I spoke of spatial awareness (spacing), understanding where you were in any given moment, your shape, movement and the movement pattern required in response to the situation. For me, spacing requires the development of body, time and movement awareness, agility and execution throughout the moment and in line with the individual role.

On my drive over to the venue today, I reflected on our 1st quarter success, on our SoL and our practice sessions over the past five day’s. I entered the arena comfortable that the boys had been working hard, that they wanted to improve, and that we had achieved some mileage within our 1st quarter journey. Unfortunately for me, none of what I had contemplated offered any degree of personal reassurance, I felt somewhat out of sorts, a personal matter had been plaguing me all week and it was now leaning on me. I attempted to move the thought to a side, however, I was pretty sure that it wasn’t suddenly going to just go away.

I sat down in front of the players and delivered my 45 second pre-game address. I had spent the hour prior to the game sorting out video capture and had not had the chance to really converse with the players. I will say though, I am not sure just how important it is to deliver any direction or offer a motivational sound bite to take them into the game. I had however planned on talking about our distance travelled, what we had accomplished to this point and where we wanted to go next. The truth of the matter was simple, I wasn’t going to get much more than 45 seconds so my message was uncomplicated, “discard the mistakes and move on!” We had scouted pretty well, the video had told us what we needed to do and our Friday practice had allowed us to go through our individual roles. So, ‘discard the mistakes’ was to be our game mantra, our approach for the next forty minutes and who we sought to be.

As we lined up for the tip I asked our jumper, “where is it going?” “Where is the ball going?” I got no reply. I then said, “number 13, your ball” – having looked at the player positioning on the floor, I was confident that we could win the tip and that our number 13 was the open man. I was wrong, we won the tip but it went straight to the opposition. Was my questioning wrong? Should I have been more directive and instructional? I thought the ‘play’ was obvious, the advantage clear. I then questioned myself, had I coached that moment? Was it something we had covered in our practice? It was both a micro and meso element, yet I was confident that I had not overtly discussed our positioning and approach to the jump ball situation. Why not? We lost the quarter 11-10 but went on to win the game 83-52…perhaps there is a message yet to be uncovered here about my planning and my practice!

A mixed offering north of the border

We had enjoyed a good practice the night before and I was feeling good about where we were after three weeks of preparation. However, it was 5am and we were about to embark on the 200 mile journey to the City of Edinburgh to face a well coached and talented team.

My pre-game talk was short and to the point, I wanted the boys to feel comfortable, relaxed and confident in their collective identity. I shared a few philosophical positions on work, effort, responsibility and identity. I then asked each of them to give the game their full attention, to recognise the role they would play and to enjoy their contribution to whatever unfolded in the next forty minutes. After this, I let them ‘go’, the warm-up was theirs to own, and although I didn’t agree with the content, I didn’t say anything to them, I let them have the time to express themselves.

We couldn’t have gotten off to a better start if I had been moving the players into place myself. We pushed the ball with authority, it was clear that we were searching for every fast break point on offer. We made every effort to get down the floor and into a scoring position as quickly as possible, it looked like a ‘track meet’. We were communicating, sharing information and taking responsibility for our roles, it was great to watch. In fact, at that moment, I was convinced that what was to follow was going to be an impressive first outing.

In truth, what did unfold was a mixture of actualisations and realisations. We moved through an array of really good and really bad play. In short, our ability to communicate had left us, and with it, any sense of ownership or responsibility. To say that I was frustrated at the level and volume of our mistakes was an understatement. However, I tried very hard to remain positive, to ask questions and to challenge the players to think. I wanted them to use our rules and principles to guide our play and to keep us together. We had inserted these concepts as a way of shaping our development and our collective identity. It was clear that we were yet to be really confident in who we were. This being said, the responses from some of the players was good, it was clear that we had an intelligent team, a group of young athletes that were capable to think and reason their way through mistakes. I just needed to promote autonomy and freedom of expression as a baseline to our style of play. The mistakes we made now would serve us well as we moved deeper into the season.

As we packed up in preparation to ‘hit the road’, I felt that there was a lot that we could take away from the game, both positive, and perhaps not so good, however, what was clear to me, and what I was most pleased about was the level of effort. It was not always controlled or efficient, but it was not lacking by any means. With this in mind, I was happy to conclude my thoughts with the idea that we had something good to build on and that we now had two weeks in which to do so. The greater challenge for me was to deepen my tool box, to be better prepared for the level of coaching I would meet and to be able to respond to the challenge. Why? At times throughout the game I had been out-manoeuvred, tactically vested, and showed no real response. In fact, I think this is perhaps why I wasn’t celebrating as much or allowing myself to enjoy the moment, the players had done their part but I had failed to correct our inefficiency on defence (reaching, late rotations, poor closeouts and a lack of pressure on the ball) and merely provided the players with opportunities to think, to reflect on what they were doing as oppose to offering a way of fixing the issue. In short, I felt that the main issue, at this moment in time, was my ability to coach in a manner that would respond to the U16 Premier League North!