Rovers embark on new initiative for under-age football

**sligoman** · 26/05/2005, 4:55 PM

SLIGO Rovers are to embark on a major new under-age coaching initiative, which will see youth players, their managers and coaches, invited to the Showgrounds for specialist coaching sessions. Preliminary details of the scheme were outlined by Rovers boss, Sean Connor, at the Annual General Meeting of the Sligo/ Leitrim Youth and Schoolboys League where he told club delegates: �I don�t want to steal your players.�

By Michael Moran

�This is all about best practice, about developing young players from under-10 up, developing skills and developing players mentally and physically in the right way.

�These players and their coaches will be coached by staff at the Showgrounds, myself included, and will go back to their clubs and take with them what they feel is appropriate,� he explained.

Rovers will write to all clubs in the area asking them to send a number of their best players from each age group to the Showgrounds.

�We will take under-10�s, under-12�s, under 14�s and under-16�s on a different night of the week. Coaches such as Mickey Feeney, F.A.I. Development Officer, Niall Harrison, and others will work with them.

Development

�I also plan to bring in one or two of the first team players to work with the kids,� Connor added.

At the outset, the Rovers manager recalled that when he had been appointed as successor to Don O�Riordan he and a number of the club officials had discussed youth development.

He had put together a fourteen page document, which was lodged with the F.A.I., Niall Harrison and was also sent to Packie Bonner.

The former Irish international �keeper had subsequently stated that the document dovetailed with the F.A.I.�s blueprint for the future development of the game.

�I want to make a number of changes to the existing structure. I want to get a bigger pool of under-17�s who will play for the under-18�s, with the under-18 team playing in the under-21 league.

�Sligo Rovers playing in the local league does no one any favours, but it is part of licensing. Recently, our under-21 team beat Bray Wanderers at the Showgrounds and seven of that team were in fact under eighteen years of age.

�Youth football is very important to me, but it is very important that it be developed at the right level,� Connor went on.

Skills

He told club representatives that he had studied the methods of coaching at the academies in Birmingham City, Manchester United, Blackburn and Stuttgart.

Small-sided games were the key, with the emphasis on developing the right habits and skills.

�We have to take a serious view on player development. Up to the age of sixteen everything you do should be about developing the right skills and attitudes, not about winning trophies. That can be a difficult situation for some people, but that is the way it should be,� he told delegates.

�If we get a 17 or 18-year-old who has come through this system, it is much easier to integrate them into our own system then,� he maintained.

Connor spoke of coaching methods in Holland and said the Dutch were very good at the small sided games and a player rotation system.

�It should not be the case that a player who is nine years old is picked as a right back or a centre half and is then limited to that position.

�That can stall his progress. The players should rotate to different positions at that age. The Dutch are very good at this and in seven-a-side games, the players rotate every six minutes.

�This allows kids at this age to become aware of different positions and to learn about space.

Benefit

�I want players and coaches to come to the Showgrounds to work with us for the benefit of everyone involved. You can take what is appropriate to you and go back and work with your players. This way, we can see players developing over time.

�Perhaps I wont be here to see the benefit of what we are about to start but it would be tremendous to see a player who came in at under 10 going on to play for Sligo Rovers as an eighteen year old,� he added.

Connor, however, stressed that the initiative was not about Sligo Rovers taking the best players from clubs.

�If they reach seventeen or eighteen and they are then good enough, we will want them. And, I hope that if you have a seventeen or eighteen year old who is good enough, you will want him to come to us,� he said.

The Rovers manager also stated that there was the prospect of a fourteen or fifteen year old player going to Birmingham City as part of the link with the Showgrounds outfit.

�Players could go in the Summer, at Easter or Christmas and if a decision was taken to bring him to Birmingham, he would not be plucked from his home environment out of the blue. He would know what it would be about,� Connor added.

He said that if people were genuine about youth development they would have to give him time to get the youth policy up and running.

Schools

He revealed that it was also planned to visit local schools for coaching sessions.

�I want to emphasise that this is not about Sligo Rovers stealing players. We want to help coaches, help players and helping clubs.

�People should be proud of the fact that players like Jason McCartney, Gary Curran and others have made it through to the senior squad.

�We must, however, ensure that future players develop in the right manner from a young age.That is what this is all about,� he concluded.

* Meanwhile, Sligo/ Leitrim Secretary, Michael Mulvaney, confirmed that from next season on, seven-a-side games only would be played from the under-10 age group downwards.

�Eight and nine year olds won�t be playing eleven-a-side football from then on. There will only be small-sided games,� he said.

http://www.unison.ie/sligo_champion/...issue_id=12530
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Hey, Mervile United(RD) have you got any word from them yet?

**MervilleUnited** · 26/05/2005, 8:49 PM

No word as of yet, the Majority of Clubs now finished till August, so I doubt anything formal until then.

We at Merville hope to have a couple of one day camps over the summer, and will be extending an invitation to Sean and the coaching staff to come over for an hour to give us a few ideas! If half of Seans ambition comes to fruition, it will be Ajax stuff in 5 years!