Monthly Archives: January 2019

This week caused havoc as throughout Thursday afternoon, snow build-up meant that travelling was difficult. Unfortunately, Gavin ended up stuck on a road in Cornwall and I was unable to get my car off the driveway at home. With coaches stranded it meant we were unable to put on a session.

This was especially difficult considering it was only our second ever session! Due to not having consent forms, I had to text as many parents as I had numbers for and put messages onto social media to say that the session was cancelled. Thankfully, as Chris was already at the club, he was able to explain the situation to the several parents who did still turn up.

Not much could be done about this week, unfortunately. A shame that we had to write it off but thankfully parents were more than understanding about the situation we were in.

This week saw the first ever Mini Marjoneers programme take place, from 6-7pm in the Sports Hall at Marjons. The session saw 16 children turn up, which considering it was the first ever was great to see. As a goodwill gesture we agreed that the first few sessions would be free, and £4 from then on in.

Gavin lead on the session with myself supporting as we covered as planned, ball manipulation, skills, 1v1’s and then matches. Due to Chris Smietanka being away, vice-chairman of the club Jon Dawe was able to come and speak to parents about the new setup and the club in general. I particularly enjoyed the quote about Marjons being the wrong club if parents wanted to win trophies at U9, sticking true to the values of how we want the football club to be ran.

Consent forms were handed out and feedback from the parents was that the session was definitely a success. With the knowledge that more children would attend next week, we made the executive decision to get another earlier slot as well so we could split the group into two and make numbers more manageable in future.

This week marked the final few days before the Mini Marjoneers programme began. While a few things were left to prepare, we were mostly setup for the beginning of a successful new session at the club.

Gavin had confirmed his availability and plans were drawn up for what we could cover in the first session. It was agreed that we would like to focus on technique and ball skills, so lots of opportunities for dribbling, turns, skills and 1v1’s were created. A session that would be appropriate for a different number of ages and abilities.

The google document had been formed and the consent form saw over a dozen children sign up. This was a larger number than expected, and so we began to consider that we might need to extend to two sessions, with an earlier slot available for younger children and the later slot remaining for the older children. However, before confirming this we needed to see how many children would attend the first session in a week’s time.

This week of the placement involved creating the social media presence, which meant creating a Twitter account and Facebook page specifically for Mini Marjoneers. This was to help with advertising for the first session. Today, the programme went live on social media with parents encouraged to sign-up using a Google document I had created so as to help us keep track of the number of participants.

I had also created a virtual poster which I shared into different Facebook groups in order to gain publicity. I also created the consent forms that we would use to get player details in order to help us determine estimated weekly numbers and the ages of the children involved. I created a Google Sheets page to create this database, useful particularly because it can be accessed and shared with people who need the appropriate information.

Everything was planned and organised ready for the session to begin two weeks later. Gavin Smith, a Marjon U18 coach and former manager and youth coach at Marine Academy Plymouth was brought in to help with coaching due to his experience running a similar session. A lot of his ideas focused on the style and methods of coaching that we wanted, and so he was an appropriate individual to bring in. As a thank you for his work, the fees he would pay for his son to play for the club were written off.

My placement aim was to create a new programme at Plymouth Marjon FC with the aim of providing football provision to children from Year 1 to Year 3 at primary school. I would then deliver on this programme for the club.

The reason behind wanting to create this programme was so that Marjons could create its own players and teams for the future. The previous company that formed the initial youth teams at the club had started to have problems, and so it was deemed that the club could save money and improve the quality of coaching by beginning its own in-house programme.

At a meeting with Chris Smietanka to plan the project, an initial 5-6pm session was created that was available to all children (both boys and girls) in Year 1 to Year 3. The coaches to work alongside myself would be decided at a later date. Following on from this decision, we decided that £4 a session would be appropriate and that we would need consent forms to create a database of children as well as a social media presence to publicise and to keep parents informed which I would be charged with taking care of.