The Boanas Column: Football People

boanas_keith_2013_2Hello everyone firstly can I say thank you to the editor and the publication for inviting me to write for the paper. Being introduced as a Legend of coaching was extremely humbling for me and took me a little by surprise.  I am not sure I would class myself in that category, however I have had the pleasure of being mentored by and taught by many who I would certainly list under that banner.

As president of the Coaches association over in Surrey I have a prestigious list of Vice –presidents Such as Roy Hodgson, Dario Gradi, Ray Lewington, Terry Venables and others I was actually lucky enough to observe coaching or was mentored by including former President Sir Bobby Robson, Les Reed, Nicky Milo and Keith Blunt who very sadly recently left us.  Lastly others who became friends and colleagues such as Ted Dale and Arthur Hammond..  The word Legend of coaching football would fit any one of the above.

They are what I call football people every one of them having the game in their hearts and in their blood. And the SFCA is honoured to have such names attached to it. As I am deeply honoured to be the current president mainly because of my coach education work with the County FA over a 22 year period.

I have of course worked with and alongside many others but sure some of them will be mentioned in future articles. I wish to provide you as readers with something a little different not just local news on teams which I am sure is covered in depth elsewhere.   But a view from different angles on subjects like working in the game form Grassroots upwards. Working overseas, out of comfort zones in different cultures. Life as a coach not having the luxury of elite players at your disposal and maybe some chats with some of those friends and colleagues that I can quote to you all.

In the future if there is a particular subject I can help with or advise on maybe the editor will allow me to do that also?

For the rest of todays, to let you know that I have just returned from 8 years living and working in the small Baltic State of Estonia as head coach of all Female National teams and tasked with developing the girls and women’s game with a population of around 1.25million and a country covered with snow much of the time it was never going to be easy.

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My Estonian womens A national team squad

When I arrived in 2009 there were less than 500 girls and women in total involved in the game with 2 female coaches. On leaving at the end of this month there are now over 1250 players heading upward all the time and over 80 qualified female coaches including 1 x UEFA PRO 2 x UEFA A   with UEFA B and under supporting them.   Of course all amateur though I have managed to encourage a few to play outside Estonia who we felt had that potential.

So in essence we lost more games than we won but development means coping with that and I am happy that we did our best with limited resources especially human resources.

So hopefully this has whet your appetite?  I think exceeding my agreed space so will leave it for now and look forward to next time.

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