Trevor Brooking: 'Youngsters are just not skilful enough'
Grass-roots pioneer Brooking stresses need to catch them younger as nation falls further behind
By Steve Tongue
Published: 22 April 2007
In an autobiography published in 1981, plain Trevor Brooking of West Ham United wrote: "There is no short answer to the problem of lack of skill in English football." More than a quarter of a century later, Sir Trevor, ambassador and sports politician, has the task of finding that answer as the Football Association's director of development.
Three full years into the job, he believes he is on the right track, but in the course of a long interview last week he still identified an alarming number of obstacles: among them at the youngest levels a lack of qualified coaches, physical co-ordination and technique, with over-emphasis on competitive football and results leading to "damaged goods"; at academy and professional level, too high a proportion of foreigners, indifferent coaching, and an inability to keep and manipulate the ball by players who have specialised in a particular position much too early.
If there was one bonus from England's performances at the World Cup and subsequently under Steve McClaren, it has been to emphasise that having produced a supposed golden generation of players we cannot permit any complacency about how the system works. Indeed, by November last year, a review of the development of young players in professional football had been set up. While the Football Association might have seemed the obvious body to conduct it, the Premier League and the Football League insisted on an independent chairman, so Richard Lewis, the chief executive of the Rugby League, was appointed and is due to report next month.
As Brooking admits, in his understated and diplomatic way, this has led to "a little bit of an impasse" for the time being, leading him to concentrate on the grass roots, where the green shoots these days are astonishingly young. Clubs are allowed to put on sessions for youngsters from the age of six, and one of the greatest concerns is the quality of work done there and the results being produced.
"We're trying to get youngsters an introduction to physical movement and co-ordination," Brooking says. "But the sad fact is that some of the quality of introduction into physical activity these days is not good. It's reckoned nearly half of 11-year-olds leaving primary school are physically illiterate. So if we can get good-quality coaches working with the five to 11s, my belief is that at 11 most youngsters should have the first touch, the ball manipulation and individual skill in place. It's pretty evident a lot of youngsters haven't. Next month we should have a sponsor to get some full-time people and regional people in to work with those age groups."
Give me the boy at seven, the Jesuits might have said. Unfortunately, Jesuit football coaches appear to be thin on the ground, and working with these youngest groups can be considered unrewarding in every sense. Abroad, Brooking says, they take a different approach: "In other countries you get top-quality coaches encouraged to stay full-time in that age group. Here you work your way through the age groups and think you have to be in the 16-plus group to earn any money. By then coaches are working with damaged goods, [players] who are simply not good enough."
At that point, there are serious implications for the academy system set up a decade ago: "When I speak to overseas coaches like Arsène Wenger, Rafael Benitez and Martin Jol, [they say] our 13-year-olds are technically not of comparable standard to other parts of Europe or even Africa. Now, because of the financial success of the Premier League, they're starting to bring in 15- and 16-year-olds and their families from all over the world. When we set up the academy system, I don't think anyone envisaged it would be filled with anything other than Brits. So our challenge as a governing body is to get a 15- or 16-year-old of really top quality, otherwise they're just not going to be signed on by Premier League clubs and our 40 per cent English players in the Premiership will deteriorate even more."
How else can we do that? "We've neglected the small-sided stuff, one against one and two against two, keeping the ball in tight areas. We've got to focus more on individual skill and then convert it into a game. Also, in France, Holland and Spain players don't develop positions until they become [all-round] footballers. I think everyone working in the clubs feels something needs to change."
Understandably unwilling to say very much about the current England team and their travails, he does see even at the highest levels some of the deficiencies identified above. "We have to keep the ball better. We squander possession too easily, while other sides keep it in tight areas. And with a 55 million population, we've got to make sure we can get the depth across the different positions. We're not overstrong in goalkeepers, full-backs, strikers. And definitely not in left-sided players."
Oh for one of those, a Trevor Brooking perhaps, to resurrect the current qualifying campaign as he did the similarly troubled World Cup group of 1981. He is taking the longer and broader view these days, speaking last week at the launch of Your Game 2007, a huge street football event, and then at a primary school in West Bromwich. But the vision and intelligence in a smart suit rather than white or claret-and-blue shirt appear happily intact.
Grass-roots pioneer Brooking stresses need to catch them younger as nation falls further behind
By Steve Tongue
Published: 22 April 2007
In an autobiography published in 1981, plain Trevor Brooking of West Ham United wrote: "There is no short answer to the problem of lack of skill in English football." More than a quarter of a century later, Sir Trevor, ambassador and sports politician, has the task of finding that answer as the Football Association's director of development.
Three full years into the job, he believes he is on the right track, but in the course of a long interview last week he still identified an alarming number of obstacles: among them at the youngest levels a lack of qualified coaches, physical co-ordination and technique, with over-emphasis on competitive football and results leading to "damaged goods"; at academy and professional level, too high a proportion of foreigners, indifferent coaching, and an inability to keep and manipulate the ball by players who have specialised in a particular position much too early.
If there was one bonus from England's performances at the World Cup and subsequently under Steve McClaren, it has been to emphasise that having produced a supposed golden generation of players we cannot permit any complacency about how the system works. Indeed, by November last year, a review of the development of young players in professional football had been set up. While the Football Association might have seemed the obvious body to conduct it, the Premier League and the Football League insisted on an independent chairman, so Richard Lewis, the chief executive of the Rugby League, was appointed and is due to report next month.
As Brooking admits, in his understated and diplomatic way, this has led to "a little bit of an impasse" for the time being, leading him to concentrate on the grass roots, where the green shoots these days are astonishingly young. Clubs are allowed to put on sessions for youngsters from the age of six, and one of the greatest concerns is the quality of work done there and the results being produced.
"We're trying to get youngsters an introduction to physical movement and co-ordination," Brooking says. "But the sad fact is that some of the quality of introduction into physical activity these days is not good. It's reckoned nearly half of 11-year-olds leaving primary school are physically illiterate. So if we can get good-quality coaches working with the five to 11s, my belief is that at 11 most youngsters should have the first touch, the ball manipulation and individual skill in place. It's pretty evident a lot of youngsters haven't. Next month we should have a sponsor to get some full-time people and regional people in to work with those age groups."
Give me the boy at seven, the Jesuits might have said. Unfortunately, Jesuit football coaches appear to be thin on the ground, and working with these youngest groups can be considered unrewarding in every sense. Abroad, Brooking says, they take a different approach: "In other countries you get top-quality coaches encouraged to stay full-time in that age group. Here you work your way through the age groups and think you have to be in the 16-plus group to earn any money. By then coaches are working with damaged goods, [players] who are simply not good enough."
At that point, there are serious implications for the academy system set up a decade ago: "When I speak to overseas coaches like Arsène Wenger, Rafael Benitez and Martin Jol, [they say] our 13-year-olds are technically not of comparable standard to other parts of Europe or even Africa. Now, because of the financial success of the Premier League, they're starting to bring in 15- and 16-year-olds and their families from all over the world. When we set up the academy system, I don't think anyone envisaged it would be filled with anything other than Brits. So our challenge as a governing body is to get a 15- or 16-year-old of really top quality, otherwise they're just not going to be signed on by Premier League clubs and our 40 per cent English players in the Premiership will deteriorate even more."
How else can we do that? "We've neglected the small-sided stuff, one against one and two against two, keeping the ball in tight areas. We've got to focus more on individual skill and then convert it into a game. Also, in France, Holland and Spain players don't develop positions until they become [all-round] footballers. I think everyone working in the clubs feels something needs to change."
Understandably unwilling to say very much about the current England team and their travails, he does see even at the highest levels some of the deficiencies identified above. "We have to keep the ball better. We squander possession too easily, while other sides keep it in tight areas. And with a 55 million population, we've got to make sure we can get the depth across the different positions. We're not overstrong in goalkeepers, full-backs, strikers. And definitely not in left-sided players."
Oh for one of those, a Trevor Brooking perhaps, to resurrect the current qualifying campaign as he did the similarly troubled World Cup group of 1981. He is taking the longer and broader view these days, speaking last week at the launch of Your Game 2007, a huge street football event, and then at a primary school in West Bromwich. But the vision and intelligence in a smart suit rather than white or claret-and-blue shirt appear happily intact.
but I bet the FA, Sky Sports and Premier League spin doctors will rubbish this article. 
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