Soccer Coach Weekly

Wesley Gullin started coaching in the early  2000s, in his hometown of Watford, just north of London.  In 2013, a job with Yeovil Town Ladies took him to the south-west of England. Wesley has since immersed himself in girls and women’s football in the region – coaching at Yeovil, founding Sherborne Town Ladies, and working at both Somerset and Dorset Advanced Coaching Centres (ACCs). Now called Em...

As a semi-professional player, John Allpress says he wasn’t very good because, rather than having a "footballer’s mentality", he has a "game-based mentality". It was this mentality that led to him becoming a physical education teacher - initially shocked that people were "paying him money to play games" - before coaching at top-level English academies, such as Ipswich...

Justin Walley’s soccer journey has, he says, been "very chaotic and very unintentional".  From being player-manager of his university team at the age of 18, to working at Euro 96 as assistant director for one of the host cities, Nottingham; and from founding and coaching Riga United in Latvia, to managing the team representing Matabeleland in Zimbabwe, Justin’s journey has been beyond wh...

Michael Wright has coached within the youth ranks at Premier League club Southampton for the past decade. Now working with the under-nines to under-11s in the academy, he has previously held roles with various other age-group teams and in the recruitment department. His coaching journey began aged 17, and ramped up when he was released as a player, when he had been, by his own admission, "mor...

Lewis Vaughan-Jones finds himself in a position many coaches will be all too familiar with – working with multiple teams. Lewis coaches the U8s, U9s and U14s at Notts County's development centre, the goalkeepers at Notts County Girls, and a senior men’s team in tier 11 of the English football pyramid, Wollaton FC. It means the 22-year-old FA Level 2 coach is gaining lots of experience fast. B...

Rob Breton has been coaching since the age of 17. He started out as a youth coach before moving into the US college game, spending four years as an assistant women’s coach at NCAA Division II team Alderson Broaddus University in West Virginia. During his time at AB, Rob also assisted with the Battler men’s soccer program and was girls’ head coach at Clarksburg’s Excel Futbol Club. He has since ste...

Chris McLaughlin is a teacher, Uefa B license coach, and increasingly, a football analyst. With a variety of coaching experience -  including work as an academy coach, club development officer and women’s assistant manager - and time spent at the Scottish FA and Celtic, Chris set about integrating analysis into his skillset to improve his tactical understanding. A role as first-team scout and oppo...

Dan Bratcher is a Uefa B-qualified coach, currently working with Cambridge City Ladies, who play in the fourth tier of the women’s football pyramid in England. Having stepped into coaching after realising he wouldn't make it as a player professionally, Dan has now found a home for himself within the women’s game. He is committed to his personal learning and development, with the ultimate aim...

Aulani Fernandez is currently the interim head women’s soccer coach at Chicago State University. It is a role that Fernandez - part of the 2021-22 United Soccer Coaches' 30 Under 30 Program - didn’t see coming so soon. But she has grasped it with both hands.  At Chicago, she is rebuilding the program from the ground up, with a culture of "inclusiveness, love, support, vulnerability and s...

Connor McGinn is a 21-year-old coach based in the UK, FA Level 2 qualified and a third year student in a football coaching degree programme. He has spent time coaching at grassroots level, in development centres and at academies. Most of his coaching experiences have been with children from under-6 to under-10, and through that he has found a passion for coaching in the foundation phase (ages 5-11...

Having stepped away from coaching to become a postal worker, an offer to coach a colleague’s son’s soccer team led Matt Fisher back to a journey he had started at the age of 16. More than two decades on from his first step onto the coaching ladder, Matt is now full-time at English pro club Crewe Alexandra, famed for their academy which has produced several England internationals. He works with the...

Philip O’Callaghan is a physical education teacher from Cork in Ireland. Though tennis was the sport he played growing up, and coaches now outside of school, his PE sessions mean he teaches a variety of sports. Much of his approach to teaching sport is based on skill acquisition, a topic he says he researches and reads about as a hobby - even running a Twitter account to make the approach more acc...

Eight years ago, when Ali Speechly was playing Sunday League matches with a team in south London, she was offered a free place on an FA Level 1 course, then the entry point into coaching in England. That first course quickly led into a second and now, almost a decade on, Ali is a Uefa B level coach, with a vast array of experience under her belt. She has coached players at grassroots level, respec...

Barnsley Women ply their trade in the fourth tier of women’s football in England. At the helm is 26-year-old Lois Daniels, who became the sole person in charge in May after a period as joint-manager. She had previously coached Sheffield FC and their city neighbours Sheffield United, having hung up her boots early as a player to fully commit to her management dream. Her first solo season as Barnsle...

Ross Williams is a physical education teacher, working in a small school in north Wales. Having started out as a strength and conditioning coach working in elite pathways, Ross now applies his skills to his PE practice and curriculum. SCW caught up with him to find out more about his approach, talk about what planning and reflecting looks like for him, and get some tips for coaches working in a sc...

Matchdays are a key part of the coaching week and can be exhilarating, daunting and stressful all at once. For the players, those emotions are amplified. It is the coach’s role to make the matchday experience as safe and enjoyable as possible for all. But how do we go about doing that? We asked Sarah Lowden, a Uefa A coach and a regional coach development officer at the Football Association, for h...

Having previously spent time coaching at QPR and Aldershot Town, Ross White is now lead professional development-phase coach at English fourth-tier club Sutton United. The Sutton academy - where White leads the under-18s squad, the final step before the senior team - recently attained Category 3 status, the third level for UK academies. Uefa A-licensed coach White describes the past 12 months at t...

Dean Arrowsmith is director of coaching of the United and Extra programs at the American Youth Soccer Organisation's Region 300 in Chicago. He moved to the US permanently seven years ago to take up a full-time role in soccer, having gained much of his experience back in Dundalk, Ireland. Alongside AYSO, he also has another very important role: co-founder and chairperson of Head In The Game, a...

Having previously coached at youth clubs, in the Elite Clubs National League, at development academies and as an assistant at NCAA D1 level, Jason Collinsworth is now fully focused on his own enterprise. PlayMaker Training provides individual coaching to develop more confident players who want the ball.  SCW caught up with Jason to talk about why confident soccer players are so important, and how...

After two serious injuries in consecutive seasons, non-League player Ben Franks turned to another area of the game he had always been interested in – coaching. He chose university as the route of entry, doing an undergraduate degree in sport, coaching and physical education, a Masters by research in sport and health sciences, and is now studying for a PhD in perceptualmotor learning. He is also a...

Since starting coaching at 14, Ross Brooks has developed a style and approach that sets him apart as a brilliant foundation phase coach. Although he has experience across many levels and forms of the game, Ross says he does enjoy teaching that 5-11 age group the most, and his mission is to make sure the kids he coaches are enjoying it too. Currently the u9s-u11s lead coach at West Ham United, Ross...

In 2020, Adam Davidson returned to the UK from Australia. The pandemic made sponsorship and visas difficult, meaning he couldn't stay in a country where he had spent the previous five years working various roles, such as youth technical director at Dunbar Rovers FC. Adam has since been appointed head of coaching at Priority Football Academy, based in Bristol, England. He has been there for mo...

Debbie Barry did her FA Level 1 coaching qualification when she was at university in Liverpool. She didn’t coach for a number of years after that, believing there wasn’t a career available to her. Instead, she chose teaching.  In 2019, a visit with a school colleague to Doncaster Rovers Belles' training facility reignited her interest in coaching. Three years later, Debbie is now both the u16...

In 2015, Brookhaven College women’s soccer team were struggling, often seen by league opposition as an opportunity to increase goal difference. In the seven years since, the Texas-based Bears have gained three national titles and won the conference five years in a row.  This has all come under the stewardship of head coach Jimmy Elder and his assistant Robert Williams. Robert, who originally began...

Ed Jackson-Sankey started coaching at the age of 12, helping his mother run the after-school team at a local primary school. That was 16 years ago. Now, Ed is in the final stages of completing his Uefa A and Elite Youth A Licenses.  His coaching journey, which has taken him to South Korea and seen him take up roles in England with Portsmouth and Oxford City, among others, was interspersed with a s...