Mixed Age Groups is Childs Play

Mixing the age groups especially in the Foundation Phase is common practice in most EPPP football academies and is regarded as a great tool to develop young footballers, using the FA's 4 corners, of long term player development model. For example technically players have to improve their first touch, know when to dribble or pass and to do this faster, especially playing their older peers. To be able to tussle and fight to stay in possession, or win the ball is usually physically more demanding against older age players. Learning social skills and Psychological development, leading others and solving conflict are all part of the learning process. When we think of psychologist Lev Vygotsky's theory of "zone of proximal development" its easy to see how players especially the younger ones are stretched in mixed age groups.

This is something I have been an advocate of in various settings that I have worked in using Celebration sessions that focus on players strengths and using interleague tournaments that I wrote about in a previous article. At present we currently mix our age groups every 3 weeks, some do it even more and we will use this for Physical development fundamental movements skills, multi sports, street games, Futsal, inter-league's carousel sessions etc. All of these activities and curriculum based work is carefully put together and designed to enhanced and turbo charge player development. What we might not realise is for those of us of a certain age, what we're actually doing is recreating a range of experiences that were most peoples childhood's growing up.

For this I will take a trip down memory lane and recount some of things we did as kids every evening, weekend, or school holiday, we were out making our own fun. We were climbing trees and making dens, which unbeknown to us was improving our physical development, making go carts and racing them, or taking risks by jumping over each other and seeing if we could clear our friends on a BMX. We played different sports too, Tennis recreating Wimbledon tournaments, obviously in the summer when it was on TV, or even American Football. Most of the time though we played street football in a small cul-de-sac, around the corner from my house, or on the local school field. There could be anything from say 2 to 22 kids wanting to play, nobody was asked what school year they were and if they were an U9, or U12 you just all mixed in an played.

Not to be to nostalgic, but is a shame this current generation don't go out and play in the way that we used to, as so much of our learning came from this child's play. When I think back to the games we played consistently in the cul-de-sac, heads and volley's, Wembley singles, or doubles, SPOT and even a game we made up called lobs, where to score you had to lob the keeper gave us hours of of fun and challenge. There was a consistent six that used to be out in all weathers playing and out of that six four went on to earn money from the game at a semi pro level, whilst one made it as a professional player having a long career in EFL League 1 & 2. To be a professional player in the UK it is said to be a 0.012% chance, Pretty much the sort of chances of you being hit by a meteorite on your way home. It is though widely acclaimed that to become an expert in anything then you need to commit at least 10,000 hour to the cause. We defiantly hit those numbers growing up especially in that cul-de-sac and the lad that went on to play professionally was two years younger than most of us. Looking back those years playing with older children most defiantly help him defy the odds and reach the holly grail a career in the game.

In Malcom Gladwell's book Outliers he implies that people who reach the top in their chosen field do so not because they are a genius, but through hard work and a set of circumstances they found themselves in. When I look at my younger brother he would of been probably been around 5 years of age when our Grandad brought us a Spectrum 48K Computer. A now 38 year old collectors item, at the time was a state of the art home computer worth ￡500 in today's money. My Grandad an ex RAF engineer was also keen on computer programming and helped my brother learn and develop an interest in this. By the time the internet came along my brother was in the perfect position to use these skills, learnt through 10,000 hours of deliberate practice and now works as a web programmer and lives on the opposite side of the world. My point is without those set of circumstances and hours that he dedicated to learning this skill, he would most unlikely be doing what he does, or even living where he does now!

When I think about my own pathway and where all of this child's play helped me to find the career path I'm currently doing, again I believe a lot can be traced back to those informative years playing out with friends. Whilst I always dreamed of being a professional footballer and winning the world cup with England, unfortunately none of that ever happened and will remain a dream that I shared, with most young boys that have a love for the beautiful game. However being the oldest of the consistent six that would be out playing and dreaming of the big time, I'd imagine that I would have had a lot of say around what game we would play, the rules, who would be on who's team etc. This could have been the very start where I started to build up my 10,000 hour of deliberate practice and honing my leadership skills. I have now been a Football Coach for 14 years and have worked in the profession for the last 10 years. When I left school the job and industry I work in didn't exist. As we've established to become a footballer is a very hard task indeed, but by mixing the age groups and giving children a similar experience of child's play that we had, who know where it could lead?