Copy of Is free play the missing link for Football in Australia?

Football New South Wales recently held their annual coaching conference, an outstanding event that not only had great practitioners in action on the pitch, but also some brilliant football minds share their ideas on stage.

One of the highlights was getting to listen to Socceroo legend and former Socceroos Head Coach Graham Arnold share insights into his playing and coaching journey.

One of the key take-aways from Arnie’s chat was the importance he placed on the time he spent in unstructured ‘play’ when he was growing up. Where he went to the park and played football with his friends until it “got dark”.

There is a consensus, that the unstructured play that Arnie spoke about doesn’t happen like it used to in many suburbs around Australia. If you look at Royal Children’s Hospital National Child Health Poll, their survey found that “less than half (45%) of Australian children play outdoors most days, and 80% of parents would like their children to spend more time outdoors” (RCH, 2023).

The reasons for this are varied. Backyards in new build suburbs are getting smaller. New developments are building giant playgrounds, that look great, but might not include green space for unstructured sport.

Safety is another concern for parents that might prevent unstructured play. The absence of adult supervision prevents parents allowing their children to engage in free play at the local park.

This could be why I find that many students have their time filled in by structured activities, whether that be music or swimming lessons, tutoring or structured sport training. Often these activities require parents to taxi kids from one venue to another, some venues quite a distance from home.

When you factor in time for increased homework demands from schools, kids just don’t have the time to spend in free play like they did in Arnie’s generation.

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Why is free play so important?

Playing outside has many benefits for a child’s physical and mental health, but also their cognitive development (Gill, 2014). One of the biggest benefits I would argue is the development of creativity.

One of the keynote speakers at the Conference Gabriel Bussinger, Technical Director at Brazilian Club Vasco De Gama, spoke about the need to develop players who are not afraid to lose the ball.?

The courage to dribble and to take on players, without fear, is the ‘Brazilian Way’ and is developed through free play and futsal in Brazil.

The context in Brazil is clearly different to Australia, and this context is continually changing. What is clear though, is that even in Australia, free play has had a key role in the development of elite footballers.

?Victoria University and Professional Footballers Australia?(PFA) in their study into the ‘Golden Generation’ of Australian footballers found that free play football activities were central to the players’ development.

Just like for Graham Arnold, these were just seen as fun activities with siblings or friends, unstructured in nature, with self-directed rules and goals. For the Golden Generation, siblings provided football play mates and friendly competition to encourage continual development of skills and abilities.

The home back garden was one of the first places they were exposed to fun football activities. As they got older, the football free play environment moved from the back garden to the local park or school oval.

“The single activity Golden Generation players spent the most time doing between the ages of 5-18 was informal play with others, peaking at an average of 420 hours per year – eight hours per week – when they were 13 years old.” Culture Amplifies Talent: Building a Framework for Golden Generations

What can we do to promote unstructured or free play??

Peter Sturgess, another brilliant presenter at the Conference, who has worked at the English FA as Technical Lead for the 5–11s age group (Foundation Phase) and as England Futsal Head Coach, further encouraged the importance of play within the training environment.

He recommended to regularly play games in training, of not only even numbers (e.g. 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4) but also of uneven numbers (e.g. 2v1, 3v2, 4v3). In doing so, we can focus on developing a player’s individual capability and confidence when with the ball.

Peter also spoke about how the notion of players in the foundation phase and their creativity could be driven by coaches setting up opportunities for unstructured play, observing what is happening and scaffolding who might need help and what help they need with ‘possibility thinking’. Making the transition from ‘what is happening’ to ‘what else is possible?’. ??

If we look at outside the training environment, one of the key recommendations from the Culture Amplifies Talent is clear.

In Australia, an increased talent pool has not resulted in an increase in elite talent. ?Therefore money should be invested in infrastructure which can facilitate the volume of free play activities our Golden Generation players accrued in the backyard or local oval.

These are not ground-breaking nor new ideas.

The great Johan Cryuff recognised the need for such spaces in his native Netherlands and set about building Cryuff Courts. Mini?artificial grass football fields?built by the?Johan Cruyff Foundation?since 2003. As of December 2023, there are?almost 300?Cruyff Courts around the world.

The Documentary “One Shot: The Football Factory” explores the significant role similar courts or cages play in the development of English Players in South London. With South London providing nearly 20 per cent of all English Premier League footballers, including Tammy Abraham and Jadon Sancho, the argument for free play is strong.

Holding a World Cup has many benefits, with more than $34 million for legacy projects, there are opportunities for Clubs to tap into funding to help develop Football. Australia’s Co-Hosting of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup? coincided with the launch of the EA Sports Sam Kerr Football Pitch as part of their FC Futures program in Auburn, NSW.

The permanent pitch provides a high-quality space with free access, for young girls and boys to utilise. In short, the ideal space for free play.

Whilst this is a great initiative, how many more spaces that deliver a safe, accessible and inclusive environment for free play to occur? Spaces that provide affordances for free play like Arnie and the Golden Generation did within the changing state of suburban Australia.

How can Clubs and Associations help with the opportunities and environment they provide within the Grassroots and Elite settings?

References:

Gill, T. (2014). The Play Return: A review of the wider impact of play initiatives. www.playscotland.org/resources/the-play-return-a-review-of-the-wider-impact-of-play-initiatives-2/

UNICEF. 2018. Learning through Play. Strengthening Learning through Play in Early Childhood Education Programmes. New York: UNICEF. https://www.unicef.org/sites/default/files/2018-12/UNICEF-Lego-Foundation-Learning-through-Play.pdf.

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