As the season comes to a close, our Football Education teams have competed in regular competitive fixtures with fantastic results, and even emerging with two trophies.
Focusing primarily on technique, fitness and power this season, the hard work has evidently paid off for our students. With a wealth of players training with both the first team and academy scholars, the talent is being recognised both on and off the pitch.
A number of students have participated in County’s ‘B-team’ fixtures, facing off against the likes of Bolton Wanderers, Burnley, Huddersfield and Manchester City. This allows our players to gain experience of playing against tougher opposition while in front of a crowd.
Tony Coyne and Paul Turnbull’s second-year sides won their respective leagues this season. We caught up with the Lead Coach Coyne to get his thoughts on the successful season:
Could you give us an insight into your role at the Football Education?
I’m a football coach. I look after two teams, a first year and a second year team. I take care of everything, really, like: fixtures, liaising with other teams, physio, strength and conditioning, training the lads, get them to the games and back, tactics, just what a manager would do really.
How does it feel to end the season as champions?
Really good because the lads worked really hard after two years of early mornings and late afternoons. It’s great to have a bit of success because the players are really easy to coach and manage. We hardly have any problems. They all get on together and it’s a great environment, and on top of that there’s a lot of quality and skill in the squad, so it’s really good that they’ve come out with something at the end of the two years.
How much have the lads developed over the two years?
First year, I saw them a bit, but I didn’t coach them until this year. I’ve seen them almost every day since we started in July. They’ve come on leaps and bounds. Everyone’s improved, but three or four have really shot up and improved a lot, even socially you can see them growing day-by-day. When you get to 18 years old, I think that helps. You get a bit of confidence, but they’ve grown in stature and grown physically, but technically-wise and tactically-wise, they’ve come on leaps and bounds.
What’s been the formula for winning games?
We have a way of playing which everyone is on the same page with. We work on it every day in training and we look to play as much as we can, be progressive and pass the ball on the floor as much as possible. Nothing out of the ordinary, attack, attack, attack as much as we can. We also have a small squad, probably the smallest on the programme, we have maybe 14 or 15 players in total. We thought it would hinder us but they’ve all stuck together, all showed up for games and training. We’ve not had to borrow players from other groups, so it’s amazing that they’ve all got so much game time. They’ve all played about 25 games this year and that’s what we base our programme on, players getting loads of competitive games.
What can the students take away from this season?
Lots of things. I like to think they’ve had a lot of fun as the first thing. If you make it fun then people will want to come back. Hopefully they’ll leave here with good memories, obviously winning games helps but being and sticking together is important. Some of the coach journeys on the way back from games have been great, singing and having a great time. They’ve all improved as players, not one player has regressed. They’ve all improved at different rates and are on different journeys. The dressing room is a great place to be, there’s not one bad egg in there, they all stick together off the pitch and they all go out and socialise together, so hopefully they take a lot away from it socially, success-wise on the football pitch and hopefully they continue to grow as people.
