England Legends train Shinfield Coaches

Raymond, Brian and I travelled to St Georges Park National Football Centre to further discuss a proposed Nike Club Partnership deal with Shinfield Rangers. The trip was superbly organised by Raymond who as ever does valuable work for all at the club

It turned out to be a great event, with valuable insights from PWC into developing a business plan for the Club. The plan will help us set out and realize our Chairman’s vision for the future. With sponsorship from Nike, PWC will continue to mentor us during the plan’s implementation.

Following that, a Q&A session was held with a pair of England legends. Terry Butcher was entertaining and provided great insight to the game, including how management styles have changed, plus some hilarious Gazza tales. Graeme Le Saux turned out to be far more interesting and down to earth than how I remember him being portrayed in the newspapers while he played. He was forthright and held strong opinions on many topics in the game, ranging from player development to foreign imports. To be fair, although he wasn’t just toeing the party line, I found it hard to disagree with his views.

In the evening, Terry, Graeme and Les Howie, FA Head of Grassroots Coaching,  gave our three Coaches a good workout in training sessions on the huge indoor 3G pitch. These provided practical approaches to coaching children of all ages with unique tips from both footballing legends as they instructed and interacted with Shinfield and other Coaches. Raymond for one thought that there are few things nicer than being praised by someone with a reputation like Terry Butcher. As is tradition, the session ended by playing some matches, this time Reds V Blues.

After a quick clean up and bite to eat the trio watched/endured the England v Honduras match. Brian thought he may have to travel to Brazil now that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain had taken a knock, but whilst Terry Butcher passed a few compliments, it appears that Roy would prefer a half-fit Ox to a fully fit Brian.

All in all it turned into a great trip from which we will investigate more possibilities to help grow our community club in the spirit of providing the right environment for all in the locality who want to play the game at the appropriate level for them.

Plus we experienced some outstanding facilities for us to aspire to obtaining through implementing a new Business Plan for the Club.

Many thanks to Nike, the FA, Graeme, Terry and Les, PWC, and all the staff at St. Georges for a wonderful weekend.