The FA will soon be celebrating a birthday, making him one old fella. In this anniversary year, they will be doing the upmost to improve the standard of football in this country starting at grass roots. Now this is where i think it gets interesting, like almost every other thriving football nation we will be joining the list of countries who play futsal - a lot. Now i have been working in the futsal part of the game for about 2 years now, and believe me when i tell you it really does make the players much much better. You start out aged 5, where all you do is learn skill moves, practice keep ups and generally work on first touch. This is where you begin to see some class players emerge. Then aged 8 players go in to playing futsal, you start to teach tactics and teamwork ethic so by the age of 11 they are almost competent footballers, where all that needs to be encouraged is fitness and strength work, as tactical and technical skills are already second nature to them. However this is where it goes downhill. I have experienced seeing players who are regularly playing futsal, twice a week and doing a further 3 hours of pure skill and ball control work to develop them as players. This is the age players join up with local grassroots clubs. And your average dad is the manager and coach, and honestly they have no idea, anyone can breeze in the being a level 2 FA coach. They teach them to play hoofball and other dodgy tactics, stop working on ball control and on to running around a boggy field. Those who are good enough are snapped up by academys of local teams and put in to centre of excellence's, which are nowhere near as excellent as they are made out to be. Players are being ruined by the current system, hence the overhaul. Now the FA is hijacking the great work done by many across this country to improve young players. Time will tell if they do the right job, but i doubt they will. Should the FA have taken over the futsal? should they have done it many years ago? The whole system needs a complete overhaul. Players shouldnt be playing on a full size pitch til they are atleast 14/15, where as currently it is 11! They could employ the current workers of the game and subsidise them to hire more coaches and halls and even set up youth leagues across the country, rather than set up a carbon copy of the ones already in place. Esentially nulling the efforts put in so far. A report will say that there is little activity of Futsal in this country, which is not true, and that the FA are being sent from heaven with this new revoloutionary idea. Which is about 70 years old, from where it originated in Uruguay and was swiftly adopted by the Brazilians. Aswell as the plush new England headquaters, the FA are basically copying the work done by the Germans about 20 years ago. So this is the projected time til we see an England squad of players who were nutured properly. Was just interested to see what people think of the matter. Not sure if this is public knowledge yet, as i found out through work, but with the new Nike sponsorship coming in to place soon it could be a massive marketing ploy to sell more futsal balls and other equipment. However i am thrilled to see that the FA are finally realising that being the oldest definately does not make you the best! And hoping that in years to come we see some cracking technically gifted young players.
Great when it started, I'm sure. Now just a money making organisation that has lost touch. Boy, I'm cheery today.
Massively agree with pretty much all your comments there. It makes you wonder when they are going to use smaller pitches- almost comedic watching an 11 year old in an 11 a side goal who can barely reach the cross bar after jumping. Clever plays just put it high each time and will always score!
It just baffles me! it almost as old as the world cup competetion and yet we only bring it in when we strike a deal with the worlds largest and most corrupt sports company in the world. and then have the audacity to claim it was a brilliant new idea!!
It's interesting when you read the rule book that was written in 1863 to find that there were only 13 rules in the game - something that reflected the fact that each college effectively had it's own rules which they were reluctant to concede whilst looking for competition further afield. The thing with the FA is that most people's perception largely relates to the cup in runs, the England team or the discipline system. With regard to the latter two, the FA receives a huge amount of flak which is suggestive that this organisation is failing. The continued lack of interest in the FA cup does not help either. Last Saturday I went to watch Winchester City play Yate. Living in the area, I had always wanted to watch Winchester play but never found time. It is curious to find how often their fixtures clash with Saints - there are effectively no available league games after the Christmas holiday. As well as being an entertaining match (Winchester leading 1-0 until the last few minutes of full time and then conceding with about a minute remaining before pulling back a winner in imjury time) it was a salutory reminder of what the FA does. There are matches like this run under the auspices of the FA every weekend and I feel the 121 spectators was probably a poor reflection of the effort put in to local football. This couldn't exist without the FA. I must admit that I don't know about "futsal" but agree that the FA contributes significantly to football at grass roots level and this probably affects a greater number of players and teams and perhaps spectators than the principle clubs manage to achieve on a typcial Saturday. As a frequent visitor to France, it is curious to read in papers like "L'Equipe" that similar concerns are found in other countries and given the corruption of organised football in S America as well as Italy, perhaps we have a lot to thank the FA for? This is an interesting thread and I am not sure that I would be quite so negative. In some resepcts the good work that the FA does goes unnoticed.
I was not talking about the FA overall just this one decision. Like i say it coincides with the partnership with Nike - who produce most futsal equipment to this country at the moment.. And as for the 13 rules, they are the laws, and currently their are only 17. I am not saying they dont do lots of good work, they do, but a lot is in vein, you can set up as many youth leagues as you like, but as long as jimmys dad whose a die hard potters fan is in charge, you can guarentee that a lot of the work put in is ruined as the players arnt reaping the full benefits of the money that is invested.
Saints are getting involved in Futsal now with local colleges, joining several other professional clubs. It's good fun but I find the rules slightly befuddling. Will it resurrect English football? Probably not on it's own. Hopefully it can become more widespread over time. Good news however which is smaller pitches and fewer players on the pitch is coming into youth football. This is a good idea whether you care about the professional game or not.
I recently signed up to play Futsal at uni, I don't know if these rules are the same wherever you play, but having to hold the ball as you take a kick in? 3-second rule? Yes theoretically they speed up the game but it also means that half the time the game is stopped for whatever reason. It doesn't help that the referees were just other futsal players either. Yes it was very fun and also a lot of hard work fitness wise, but the team we played against didn't have anywhere near the technical ability we had, so in the second half when they were 6-0 down they resorted to trying to bully us, and in the end it was turning into a game of rugby, we won 8-1. And that second half was no fun at all. When it comes down to it, let us be honest as a nation we haven't produced world class players, yes the way they are taught and nurtured has an effect but at the end of the day some kids just have more natural ability than others, it seems that these kids seem to all come from a select few countries at the moment, us not included.
What do them countries all have in common though? They all use futsal, or similar equivilants as standard for youth players! Yes players have natural ability, but they need to be nutured to maximise potential. If we can match other countries set up standards, there isn't any evidence to suggest we couldn't produce players to a similar standard, especially with the people of this country immersed in football!
I play 5-a-side (not exactly the same is it? but similar) and it does make you a much better player; the pace of the game means everything you do needs to be of the highest quality and much quicker than in a 11-a-side match. Making youngsters play it can only be good.
Ian, I think you need to get closer to the FA and then local and grass roots football. It is a huge organisation, however any negativity i put it's way is becasue of how it handles these very subects. You applaud it's efforts in grass roots football, yet I strongly believe it does not do enough, no where near enough to get our game at that level right. Take one example: the "recent" announcement about changes in Youth football. They started implementing these and announced them three or four years ago, however becasue they don't have the courage to really drive something through properly, they have now "announced" it again. There is nothing different to what was implemented a few years ago and they are only re-announcing it becasue St Georges park has now officially opened. Gareth Southgate was appointed two or three years ago into a Technical Development role and has now left to be replaced by the WBA chap. What has he achieved in his tenure? Why is he leaving? The FA get the membership and organisational structure of County Associations right, except that it is an old boys' club. It needs shaking up properly. We don't need hugely paid administrators running it, we need sensibly paid, good adminstrators supporting someone with a clear vision. We need thousands of more qualified coaches. I will await with interest how many coaches from outside the professional game spend time at St georges Park over the next five years.
The reason that it appears that they come from a select few countries is because of how young kids are taught to play football. Here, they are taught to win the match; Spain, Brazil, Germany, they are taught the technique and skills. Parents and poor coaching are the biggest problem that is preventing this country produce top, top quality players.
150 years of funny handshakes , backhanders , nods and winks , bad choices and of course the old boys network , Happy Birthday FA !
