NEWS

MARCH: WHAT'S IN A SONG?

While striving to make Development Centre Sessions ever more productive with the players learning to the best of their ability and enjoyment, coaches at Football Development Schools decided to experiment in recent sessions by using music as a tool in helping to develop the players coordination and rythum within sessions. The idea is not a new phenomenon. Along with various other reasons for the abundance of skillful players in Brazil, the idea of practising to samba music is believed to have helped develop the players rhythm and touch on the ball. Developing the idea further the structure of the music also plays an important role within this as to develop this rhythm, having a continuous beat within the song helps the players to work on touching the ball to a constant beat. The practicalities of putting music into sessions is easy as all you need is a power point and stereo and off you go. However it is important that the group understand the reasons for having music on and that the whole experience will only work with the players maintaining their discipline all the way through the session. This achieved we found the players overall benefited from the experience. On observation of the sessions the coaches found that the discipline of the players increased with players working continuously, with a smile on their face and enjoying the working environment. Any idle talk was drowned out by the music and you could see the players visibly making a concerted effort to play to the music. As well as developing the tempo of the sessions, music is a great way of creating a positive environment for the player to learn in. Music with positive messages in will over time sink into the players minds, however by continuously playing "simply the best" will over time become more annoying rather than productive. Moving forward with the idea, helping the players to learn skills and touch work both in sessions and at home, we believe there are many positives to come out of playing to music and in the future we look forward to developing the idea further. Well done to the players at Bedford and Kettering for their hardwork and discipline over the weeks of this experiment.