Seasons Greetings from Auckland Central West

Hi,

What an awesome year it's been!

We've had such a fun time with your little kickers and have plans to develop the fun even further, including an Auckland wide Mega Kickers tournament later in 2014.

2014 Enrolments
Classes return on Jan 31st and many of our classes are already full. If your child isn't currently enrolled and you're looking to return in the new year I strongly advise you e-mail (info@littlekickers.co.nz) or call us (09 815 8607) and get your child on the wailtist for your preferred class time so you don't have to wait too long.

Some classes will be taken outside, your coaches will let you know if this is looking to take place and then we'll ask for sunscreen, hats and plenty of water to be at the ready.

Coaching Updates:
Mt Eden: We would like to congratulate Coach Kathryn on getting a paid job as a Lifeguard, she looks to return with us once the summer season has finished. The lovely Coaches Merren and Raj (on his return from Singapore in Feb) will do a great job having a ball with your kids. 

We are sad to see Coach Raphael leave us as he follows his dreams to become a Policeman. Both Rapha and Gabi, his wife, have been such a pleasure to have on-board and will be surely missed by all that have being coached by them and worked with them.

I would like to thank all our coaches for all the hard work they put into making our classes so much fun, we can't thank them enough for their commitment to Little Kickers and love of what they do.

Office Update
The lovely Jo who was our Office Administrator has gone on early Maternity Leave with pregnancy complications with her twins - you'll be pleased to know the twins are still growing well inside and all is well with both Jo and the twins. I enjoyed coming back into the office and answering e-mails and speaking to many of you and now we've recently welcomed on board Gina who I call our calming influence in the office. You'll be hearing from Gina in the office via e-mail and phone from now on so please take a moment to welcome her on board.

On behalf of our wonderful coaches and those in the office we wish to thank you for all your support this year and all the lovely feedback which always makes us smile. 

We hope you have a special Christmas and summer break,

Yvette 

Director Little Kickers ACW & NZ

Future All White in the making

We interviewed William Gillingham, 14yrs, Center Back player who went on a football trip with his team to the UK and got to visit Wembly! 

Full name: William Finbar Gillingham

Age:

14

When did you first start playing football?

Age 3 – 4 for Mel Soccer in the UK.

Who do you currently play for?

Wynton Rufers Soccer School of Excellence. Onehunga Football Club

How long have you been playing for them?

6 Years

What is your position on the team?

Centre Back

What is one thing that you enjoy while playing football?
Scoring Goals and winning games.

Is it hard to juggle school and practice and games?

Yes as sometimes they are on the same day.

What makes a great football player?

Someone with the desire to succeed

What did you do in the UK?

We played many Premier League Academies such as Fulham FC and West Ham United. We also  visited Old Trafford, Emirates Arena, and the Highlight; Wembley!

What was your favourite part about your trip?

Playing and beating West Ham 1-0

Who is your favourite soccer player?

John Terry

What is the next step for you?

The next step for me would have to be to make the under 17 All Whites squad.

We wish William all the best for a successful 2013, William is already off to Australia to compete in the Nike Cup!

Garden Games

Looking for ideas for your children to practice their football skills at home? Have a look at the games below and have fun teaching them to your kids.

A great way to spend a lovely Sunday afternoon and to keep fit =)

Car garage

Corner of a corner of the garden. This is the car garage. Get your child/children dribbling around the garden. When you blow the whistle, the children have to quickly dribble their football into the car garage. To make it more interesting, you can time how quickly they get their ball into the car garage or you can try to get their balls from your child.

Race mummy/daddy

This is a very simple race game, all you have to do is race your child/children. 

Make sure your child/children dribbles the ball in and out of the cones and keeps the ball nice and close. 

Hope you have a ball trying out these games!

Player Profile - Aston & Sienna - 6yrs

We have 2 player profiles in one post again this month but this time we have TWINS! Introducing Aston & Sienna...

Name:  Aston and Sienna Pickmere

Age: 6

Venues of Little Kickers attended: Mega Kickers Mt Albert/ Previously Takapuna

How long have you been coming to Little Kickers? 

2 Terms

What is your favourite little Kickers game? 
Aston: Leap Frog    
Sienna: Crab Game

What do you like best about little kickers? 
Playing games

What do you want to be when you grow up? 
Aston: Scientist  
Sienna: Vet

What’s your favourite healthy food? 
Aston: Pears, Feijoas  

Sienna: Nectarine

Who is your favourite coach? 
Aston: Coach Andrew and Coach Raphael  
Sienna: Coach Raphael 

What do you love? 
Aston: Trashies  
Sienna: Chasing the coaches to put the balls away.

Parent says: 

Really good for honing their skills playing on the quick surface.  The kids confidence has improved and this is reflected when playing games on Saturdays.  They love Mega Kickers and will be back for preseason training early next year.

Player Profile - Stella & Julia - 4 & 2yrs

Player Profile - Stella & Julia - 4 & 2yrs

We have 2 player profiles in one post this month, sisters, Stella & Julia, who attend our sessions at Takapuna.

Name:  Stella & Julia Burns

Age: 4 & 2

Venues of Little Kickers attended: Takapuna

How long have you been coming to Little Kickers? 
Stella since she was 2 
Julia since she was 18months (Total 2 yrs for Stella and 1 yr for Julia)

 What is your favourite little Kickers game? 
Stella: Big kicks and being the goalie 
Julia: Big kicks and jumping

What do you like best about little kickers? 
Stella: Seeing my friends and the coaches 
Julia: Wearing my goal shoes!

What do you want to be when you grow up? 
Stella: A mummy 
Julia: A fireman

What’s your favourite healthy food? 
Stella: Spinach lasagne & spaghetti bolognese 
Julia: Porridge

Who is your favourite coach? Stella & Julia: Daddy, Nicky & Lisa

What do you love? 
Stella: Reading books 
Julia: Staying up late

Parent says: 

We love taking the girls to "goal" each Saturday morning. They always enjoy themselves and we have watched them learn not just skills like big kicks and little kicks but also colours, counting, and more importantly, how to follow instructions, listen to teachers, and play well with others.

Football Success Through Inclusion Not Perfection

This week's post is courtesy of one of our Little Kickers coaches from the UK but we've found the content very relevant for us folks here in New Zealand too.

Introducing Coach Dave...


Football Success Through Inclusion Not Perfection

15 years or so ago I became quite keen on the game of golf. My ability was limited to say the least, but I thoroughly enjoyed playing. The scenery, the company, the gentle exercise, the sense of achievement, were all highly appealing. Then again, all these attributes still appeal to me but I haven't picked up a club since the turn of the millennium. Whilst I found that I could hack my way around any course in my unorthodox style, and my putting was as good as any of my peers, I felt a massive pressure to improve.

This pressure came from friends who were better than me. It would appear their beef with my game was my swing, or lack of it. Rather than starting directly above my head, it started from about a 35% angle behind my back leg. I was perfectly happy playing like this – being in my early 20's, any chance of winning the Open had long gone. But they wouldn't let it go. "You've got so much power, you could be awesome if you had a correct swing" was the kind of comment I'd hear on loop. Finally, I gave in and booked a course of lessons with a 'pro'. He was not amused by my style of golf at all. "You can't do that, you must do this, that and the other". I tried, but the higher my swing starting point, the more air shots I made. And that was when I wasn't hacking lumps out the turf. I was hitting everything but the ball.

I persisted for months with what I'd been 'taught'. But gradually lost patience and fell out of love with the game. It wasn't fun any more. It was hard work, frustrating, even embarrassing. When I heard Bubba Watson had surprisingly won the US Masters, one commentator described his style as "Like watching an octopus cut down a tree with a chainsaw". He then went on to remark on how ridiculous Bubba's long arms would look poking out the end of the Green Jacket's sleeves. This seasoned pundit was pretty much saying 'how could such an unorthodox freak win one of golf's biggest prizes?' A man who by his own admission has never taken a single golf lesson! Well he won it pal, and he won it his way.

Who actually wrote the manual for sports which says 'you can't do that and you must do this'? Surely if a technique works and gets results, then it's right. Yes practice is vital to success, as is dedication. but as I heard Howard Wilkinson say recently, "We need to convince players, not tell them". Surely it's basic psychology, 'Don't expect but suggest instead'. Anyone who's ever been nagged at about anything understands this. It's exactly the same with coaching. Present the information in a fun and engaging manner. Don't ram it down their throats.

When Dick Fosbury decided not to do a scissors style high jump in the 1968 Olympics and invented his own 'Fosbury flop' ensuring he won the gold medal and broke the world record in the process, did anyone say 'you can't do that'? Well I'm sure they probably did, but I doubt he cared very much. It's now a technique which has been used ever since and we saw it at London 2012 and I am sure it will continue well into the future. Until someone dares try something different, that is.

So what's this got to do with football and coaching? Everything, I believe. In England we are so obsessed with protocol. What's right, what's wrong, what's 'the done thing'. Until recently, many pro clubs looked at children's parents to see what the child was likely to develop into genetically. Wouldn't be surprised if some still do. Tall Mom and Dad meant little Billy would be big and strong. Little Mom and Dad meant little Billy would stay little and that was no use to them. The logic remains you can turn an athlete into a footballer but you can't turn a footballer into an athlete. Theo Walcott is a good example. At 16 he had a 100 metres time which was borderline Olympic qualification. Wasn't great at football, but hey that's the easy bit to teach isn't it?

Time and again we see comparatively small foreign players who are nothing less than geniuses. Messi, Zola, Juninho, Tevez, Maradona, to name a few. Would these guys have made it in English football? Would the scouts have wanted them? We'll never know. But my guess is we've discarded a wealth of talent at the expense of brawn and power over the years.

11 year ago I was watching West Brom play QPR in a scrappy Championship game. WBA were winning 1-0 and in the 2nd half QPR brought on a young 6"7 bean pole striker called Peter Crouch. The whole stadium rocked with laughter. Myself included, I'm now ashamed to admit. "One Rodney Trotter, there's only one Rodney Trotter" and then "Rodney, Rodney give us a wave” echoed round the Hawthorns.
I, and everyone else in the stadium, had been brought up, conditioned to think people that big were good for one thing only. Basketball. I bumped into the then chief scout at WBA the following week. His name was Richie Barker. Some of the older ones amongst you will recall him as a manager in his own right – I think he was at Wolves and Stoke. Richie was in the winter of his career at this stage. But I'll never forget bringing up the subject of 'That Rodney' and Richie cutting me dead to say "He'll make some player one day, son, you mark my words. He's got it all". I was confused. I liked Richie as a person, and respected his opinion, but surely he was talking rubbish? Well 11 years later Peter Crouch has fetched a combined transfer fee of £47 million, played for England 42 times scoring 22 goals, played 395 pro games scoring 156 goals, oh and he recently scored easily the goal of the season with his sublime technique.

Football fans have selective memories. Doubt many of the 20,000 or so at The Hawthorns that day remember shouting 'Freak' every time he touched the ball now? So Richie was right. But how many Richie Barker's are there in our game at the top level, in junior football and on the terraces? Sadly, very few. Judging a book by it's cover is still the order of the day.

Crouch is probably one of the most gifted footballers English football has produced in recent times. He just doesn't look like he should be.

I believe the way to increase the amount of gifted footballers in our game is to increase the amount of quality football played and coaching received. Skills development centres are becoming far more widespread but are still the poor relation to the league systems. As I've said before, I believe leagues do serve a purpose for some children but there is absolutely no reason why kids can't play in leagues (if they want to and aren't forced by parents) and also attend skills development centres too.

I myself am starting a development centre for year one and two children as my own children have now reached this age and are too old for Little Kickers. My intention is to hold one hour sessions. The first 20 mins or so will concentrate on ball mastery in various situations. Coaching will consist of limited command style, with majority of games having a guided discovery ethos. The rest of the sessions will consist of various small sided games with themes. Smaller numbers the better to encourage higher amount of time on the ball for each player. We'll have a debrief at the end when there'll be a little, relaxed Question and Answer coaching.

We'll have a pool of players of mixed abilities. Sides will be picked and changed, handicapped and swapped. Positions will be changed too. How can an 8 year old truly know they're going to be a goalkeeper for the rest of their lives? They can't. So they'll rotate positions. Learn how to emphasise with team mates, develop a rounded appreciation of all positions. At the end, the children will go home not having won or lost 12-0, but having played football, and, most importantly, lots of it. Hopefully, having thoroughly enjoyed themselves without having (if I'm being kind) nonsense shouted at them. If I'm being honest, sometimes borderline abuse shouted at them.

My philosophy is football coaching should be about inclusion not elitism. I think the English game should work on the basis of 1000 average young children playing in a positive, fun environment is likely to reap greater dividends in the long term than a so called elite group of 20 of whom the majority will fall out of love with the game because of pushy adults and elitist coaching before they become teenagers.

If anyone agrees or disagrees with my philosophy I'd love to hear from you. I'm particularly interested in coaches and parents thoughts regarding the pros and cons of children's leagues in comparison to skills development centres. Why can't they exist happily together? Being diplomatic, perhaps there are lessons they could learn from each other for the greater good?

You can follow Coach Dave @CoachDaveLKFC on twitter. Thank you for reading!

The Hidden Skill in a Simple Game

Cast your mind back to when you were younger – I will pause here as this may take some of you longer than others – ready? OK!  Think about when you were at school, and I imagine that you would have taken a greater interest in the subjects that were taught in a fun and exciting way. The principles and fundamentals of learning were still in place, just cleverly disguised in a fun and active environment that allowed you to simply enjoy the experience, rather than to over-analyse what you were learning, and the learning process.

The child’s perspective

When you bring your child along to Little Kickers classes you will notice that, first and foremost, your child is having a great time and thoroughly enjoying playing active games with other children which stretch his / her imagination.  This is the child’s perspective of Little Kickers. 

The parent / teacher’s perspective

As a parent, you will most likely have noticed that, in addition to having a great time, your child is also developing invaluable social skills like listening, sharing, taking turns and teamwork.  These skills are consciously woven into our programmes, together with other early learning concepts such as colour and number recognition and the development of physical skills such as balance, agility and co-ordination. 

The coaches’ perspective

So far so good, but one of the other key skills your coach is encouraging your child to develop (often unbeknownst to your child, who just thinks he / she is having a great time rescuing treasure from pirates / trying not to wake the sleeping bear etc!), is a basic grasp of the fundamentals of football. When you hear the coach tell the Little Kickers that they are going to do ‘big lion kicks”; – what the children are actually learning is timing, weight of pass and a variable kicking action. Similarly, they may be asked to do small, quiet kicks so that they do not wake the sleeping coach - in reality they are learning close control, dribbling, awareness, space evasion and invasion. Our coaches disguise these skills deliberately, so that the children can just concentrate on enjoying the activity.

The skills hidden in a simple game

To the untrained eye a simple game, such as ‘Football Tennis’ above, may look like organised chaos. Travel deeper into the underlying reasons as to why that game was created, and you will find that this simple game promotes the development of an array of different skills. If you are not familiar with this simple game, the children are told that they are Pirates, and with their cannon balls (the footballs) they have to try to sink the opposition’s ship. Now, due to the powerfully imaginative nature of children’s minds, the theme of the game will be accepted and unquestioned, and what is more, the game gives the children the opportunity to use their own imaginations to seek and fill missing elements of the “story”. Meanwhile, the coaches can see the developmental process in full flow. While the children fire numerous cannonballs, the children are improving their first touch, weight of pass, multidirectional play, awareness of space, dribbling, improving their perception of boundaries, accuracy and teamwork skills.  That’s a lot of hidden learning in a simple game!

The Little Kickers programme has been developed over the past 10 years with input from FA qualified coaches, early childhood and school teachers, child health specialists and pro-active parents.  We understand that kids learn better when they are having fun, and our programmes reflect this.   

So next time you are sitting watching one of our sessions, why not see if you can pick out the skills that your child is learning?  If you can’t spot them, and you would like to find out more, do not hesitate to ask the coach.