SCC-FAS Coach Training Program

SCC EMBARKS ON COACH TRAINING PROGRAM AMIDST PLANS FOR FOOTBALL DEVELOPMENT

SCC is the first private club and entity to enrol in FAS’s football coaching program - others being SportSG and PA - and following this, the Football Section aims to develop its own coaching capabilities to grow its SCC Football Academy, while also heeding the call to support the “Unleash the Roar!” national project, engage and give back to the community.

From 17 - 18 April 2021 (Saturday – Sunday), the Singapore Cricket Club (SCC) organised the first of its coaching education program and collaborated with the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) to jointly conduct a Grassroots Coaching Course. A total of 16 members from the SCC Football Section over a diverse age range spent two days with FAS coaches to learn how to educate and develop young football players aged 6 – 9 years. Many of the members, themselves footballers who have played competitively for the SCC in local and regional tournaments, were taught the essential skills and qualities a coach needs to have to plan and conduct training sessions. “This is the first phase of the SCC Football Section’s initiative to raise up its own team of coaches who will then be able to develop our own young football talents as well as help the wider community via engagement programs,” explained the club’s Football Section Convenor Amos Boon.

“We have to be proactive and do our part to nurture Singapore’s football landscape,” he continued. As an affiliate of the FAS, we were excited at the announcement and wanted to be part of the chapter in the “Unleash the Roar!” campaign. We knew we had the infrastructure and capability to be an extended arm of this nationwide project. We thus connected with the FAS Coaching Department and managed to organise this within three weeks. We intend to grow our current academy with Elite teams with specialised training modules and also assist our current coaches in further developing their pathway. “Our hope is that after this course, we will have a wider pool of qualified coaching talent which we can tap into to grow football not just within SCC but beyond. We will also continue to work with FAS and its “Unleash the Roar!” campaign, to keep training our coaches, and send them for FAS’s higher coaching modules in the future.”

FAS President Lim Kia Tong graced the opening of the course on the SCC Padang Field and expressed his delight at SCC being the first National Football League (NFL) club that FAS has collaborated exclusively with to run the course for their members. He emphasised that this initiative to share FAS’ technical expertise in coaching represents a vital part of the Unleash the Roar project as quality grassroots coaching will go a long way in ensuring high participation rates in football for young children – increasing their exposure to football from a young age. Mr. Lim also presented attendees with their coaching course certificates and pledged to show his support for more of such initiatives in the future from other affiliates, opening the pathway for more aspiring coaches to consider this as their careers. Martin Goerojo, Chairman of SCC’s Games Control Board, said, “I am very glad to see the Section pushing out such initiatives which help us, the Section Members, to self-improve. As a player whose competitive playing days are a thing of past, I wish to give back to the game and to the Club by being able to nurture the passion for the sport to the next generation. “The course has been a good eye opener in giving us a structured approach to organizing a training session. As players, we have an understanding of the game and the drills; the course on the other hand gave us the structure and the ability to plan sessions that focus on various technical aspects of the game, be it dribbling with the ball, first touch, passing and shooting or 1-v-1, for various age groups… all learnt first-hand from FAS coaches and technical staff. He added, “Our first batch of 16 SCC Football Section coaches is excited to apply our newly found knowledge in our own SCC Football Academy; we currently have 50 kids in the program and we wish to grow the number significantly. Having coaches who have played the game and gained a formal education on how to coach kids will equip us with well qualified resources to succeed. Who knows, maybe the kids from our SCC Football Academy will be part of the team to represent Singapore in the World Cup one day.”

“It has always been my objective to give something back to the sport that has given me a good life full of wonderful memories whilst playing the beautiful game,” said Glyn Vince, Captain of the Football Section. “I have been fortunate enough to play the game at a high level making many long life friends and memories all over the world.

“It has always been my desire to pass on the knowledge and skills to those youngsters with a passion for the game and in particular those lesser fortunate children whom do not have maybe the funds to make today’s academys. I have always discussed with the PADANTIQUES and the Section to go into the community and bring lesser fortunate and orphaned children to The Padang and coach them and let them try the great game. Now that I have successfully navigated the Grassroots Coaching School I hope that we can make these dreams a reality and put the SCC into the community and give something back.” Growing with the Club from a JSM to a OTM, Football Section Member Chang Guo Guang hopes to channel all that he learnt from the coaching course into the SCC Football Academy and serve his part towards Goal 2034: “I’ve had experience coaching children from ages 5-10 for SCC Football Academy several years back. Those sessions delivered were based off a syllabus formulated by a private coaching school and the mode of delivery was largely from my own personal experience as a former professional athlete. “With the FAS Grassroots Coaching Course, I saw an opportunity for self-evaluation and I thought that through the course I would also be able to identify areas for improvement; so I decided to sign up for it. “The two-day course made me more conscious about the structure of a good training session, i.e the various components etc., as well as the characteristics of the various age group,” Chang explained. “This knowledge will certainly allow me to better plan training sessions in the future that would allow the children to learn optimally with maximum enjoyment.” 25-year old Brittanie Bartlett was the sole female footballer at the course and she held her own: “I think this FAS Grassroots Coaching Course was great. I had loads of fun and I learnt loads. “I’ve done some informal coaching of kids- mainly under 12s and i thoroughly enjoyed it. So I thought it would be good to have some official coaching training so that I could help the kids even more. Bartlett noted, “I think the main thing I’ve taken away is that the trainings need to be age-specific and we need to keep in mind that it’s more about allowing the kids to develop their skills at their individual pace but to also encourage teamwork and camaraderie because after all, football is a team sport. “I hope to be able to apply my knowledge in a practical setting. I’m doing my masters in education (primary school) and so I’ll already be in a setting with children so I hope to be able to teach and guide in the classroom but also to coach and inspire on the field.”