A few weeks ago I tentatively donned my football gear to take part in a staff v students football upon which a younger member of staff remarked ‘You play like a 1960s footballer in black and white!’ I knew just what they meant, watch the old newsreels of football matches past and you will see what I mean, even England’s world cup final with West Germany demonstrates the vast difference between football then and now.
Today’s players are athletes of the highest caliber, their body shape reflects strength and power training not to mention they require speed, agility and strong endurance. Their diet is well planned with alcohol during the season a no go. The game is quicker and technology has provided a refined ball of the highest quality.
Modern game changes, have in the main, been led by our European neighbours. Italy have long been the tacticiansand introduced ‘catenaccio’ in the 1960s, the 80s saw the ‘total football’ of the Dutch and today the Spanish short passing game has placed them above Brazil in the world rankings. At the same time France have developed their football development centre at Clairefontaine whistthe German coaching system remains strict and well organized.
Here in the UK we have been slow to respond. The FA Coaching regime as attempted, on many occasions, to change the coaching and approaches to the game in this country from grass roots through to professional level. The FA School of Excellence at Lilleshall as been followed by the National Football Centre at Burton but as yet we do not know the impact this may be having. Football clubs in the football league are still coming to grips with sports science, diet, training methods, rehabilitation and technical skills which other European countries have long been practicing. It was only the start of the Premier League in this country and the vast amount of money it generated that opened the way forward for English clubs with the influx of foreign players and eventually foreign managers. This in itselfhas brought added problems and knock on effects. Where are the English players coming through? What does this mean for the national side ? And what about the opportunities for English coaches to develop and manage at the highest level?
More recently there has been a slight positive move by some clubs to appoint British coaches ( the Premier League has over half of its managers from other countries). The pressures on the ‘modern game’ clubs are enormous and failure results in a massive loss in revenue. As a result the top clubs are losing the community aspect of their role and serve international investors and multimillionaires. In turn this leads to short lived managers:we are seeing the last of a breed of managers who are given time to develop the club from its community grassroots to the first team.
Instant success has become essential with 3 to 5 year contracts being the norm. The game as truly changed. It was recently announced that the amount of funding for football at the grass roots had been reduced due to lack of development and participation, a far cry from streets full of children playing football, using dustbins as goalposts and playing until the sun went down.
This raises many questions about the impact of other sports on our youth or the way technology has influenced our life, placing going out for a game of football way down on our children’s list of things to do. I am soon to embark on some work with the Youth Sports Trust looking at how sport can influence a young persons achievement, I wonder how football will feature or has it lost the influence it once had on motivating young people? Things have a habit of going full circle and if Liverpool win the league who knows some of those amazing football feel good factors I experienced in the 70s and 80s may return. It is an era where the game has changed but also one where it is imperative to retain some of our grass root values of the past in order to be successful.
