Working with West Riding County FA, the club arranged their own in house FA Level 1 course; the dates and times were selected by the club to meet the needs of their coaches and the course was delivered at their venue in Saltaire.

Delivered over several months gave the coaches the opportunity to fit the course around their everyday life, whilst also offering plenty of opportunities to work with their players and put the course content into practice.

The feedback, both from course learners and club officials, has been overwhelmingly positive:

Holding a course at our own venue made it so much easier for coaches to attend. Working with WRCFA to tailor the dates worked really well, meaning dates agreed to suit the candidates.

Another bonus was it allowed coaches at the club to interact with each other. As a large club often managers don't get to know each other due to multiple training venues.

We don't all have the luxury of proper classrooms but as long as room big enough it didn't matter. We got great feedback from our coaches about the course and your delivery of it. A definite success.
Paul Whitehead, Club Charter Standard Co-Ordinator

Thank you for coming to Salts Juniors to deliver the FAL1 course to our coaches. I know they have all found it very informative and enjoyable.

From the club’s perspective hosting gave us the opportunity to enrol a large number of candidates on the course. While our facilities maybe not be the best, your ability to deliver, adapt and be professional is commendable. I am unable to comment on the course content and your delivery, but have heard very favourable feedback from the coaches.

The main bonus of hosting was the local venue, we do find that coaches are reluctant to travel to WRCFA or even outside Bradford. The FAL1 is a big commitment for any volunteer, and to add 2 hours traveling time on top of the course (whether it be the day or the evening session) can put people off.

The flexibility of choosing the dates gave us the opportunity to avoid Bank and school holidays, to try and guarantee attendance. It also gave the coaches the chance to try out their new coaching skills between the sessions. The changes in the course format is a significant improvement.

As discussed with you on day 3 we feel the coaches from different age groups have benefitted hugely from getting to know each other. This may even lead to cross age group coaching which has never happened before.

We only had this amount of coaches requiring FAL1 due to the lack of available courses in the locality, and would not envisaged needing 15 places on an annual basis. However, the local course delivery to our club has been fantastic, and we would recommend it to any club.

Peter Creegan, Club Welfare Officer and Sally Creegan, Club Chairperson

On a personal note your delivery was some of the best coaching I have had the pleasure to be part of.

The FA level 1 course is well structured and provides plenty of opportunity to develop as a coach. Most importantly the course sets you on a journey to constantly review your methods, adapt and improve. My coaching is now more game related and hopefully more fun with the U10 group being the leaders while I support the 4 corners of their learning.

If you have the opportunity to attend a level 1 course I would highly recommend it. Ben’s delivery was exceptional and I am certainly a better coach for the experience. I now put more emphasis on using game related tasks and encourage my players to experiment and take risks in training hopefully making training and matches more enjoyable for all.

Sean, Coach and course learner

Throughout the course I had a really enjoyable time. The fact that it was run at my home club with my fellow coaches along with an excellent tutor made for conducive learning in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere where it was easy to challenge and ask questions without fear.

It has given me a completely different outlook on the whole coaching process and I would highly recommend the course to anyone who wants to improve their coaching skills which in turn will benefit all those who they go on to work with. It has helped me to plan coaching sessions with a defined outcome that are more enjoyable for the children I work with and I can already see the progress the children are making because of it.

By teaching me to empower the children I work with by giving them more responsibility, planning session properly through to even how I impart advice to them; this course has enabled me to interact with my team players in a more positive, fun way that is not only rewarding on a personal level but also rewarding to the children too.
Phil, Coach and course learner

West Riding County FA can arrange bespoke courses for:

FA Level 1

FA Emergency Aid

FA Safeguarding Children

To discuss arranging a course for your club, please contact arran.williams@westridingfa.com