Apologies for my lateness on this issue, I’ve been very ill so this one’s coming in slightly undercooked. With that came an opportunity however. Usually I write these newsletters in advance but because of my being ill, I got to watch the amazing story of Cam Howieson unfold in front of me at the A-league grand final. So that’s our spotlight for this week.

This week’s take is around the bureaucracy of coaching badges. For those of you who aren’t familiar with me, I’m a coach with an ambition to make a proper living out of the game. To do that, coaching badges aren’t just a recommendation, they’re a necessity. It’s utter bullshit. Let me tell you why.

Let’s do a little case study on one of my favourite characters in the game, Marc White.

Founder, chairperson, first team manager and owner of Dorking Wanderers, he justifies a position that makes loads of sense to me. For some background (this guy’s story is very interesting so I suggest you check it out), this is a guy who founded a club in a park, helped to build their stadium and has obliged with every request his Football Association has made to make sure Dorking meet their necessary requirements. The other important fact in this case is he has had 12 promotions in 25 years. Taking Dorking from a Sunday pub team that he himself used to play in, to a semi professional football team on the brink of entering the professional English Football League pyramid. When he was asked in an interview if he had any coaching badges, his response was, “I ain’t got f*ck all” and y’know what, fair enough.

It’s a position he refuses to relent on despite increasing pressure for him to sit his badges should his team turn professional (you can’t manage professionally without one). If he was asked to sit his badges to manage his team he would either, “change the rules […] tell them to f*ck off.” or “put Sarah Jane, who works in the tea bar […] through it, get her the badge, name the manager Sarah Jane, and I would just be the assistant.”

There’s so many problems with the way that badges are handed out. Firstly, how can you expect someone like me (who has a badge) to be more qualified than a man who literally built his club from the ground up. In my own personal experience of gaining my degree sometimes I would look around my cohort and ask myself ‘there’s no way this person’s degree is worth the same as mine?’ I felt that i’d worked twice as hard at it to receive the same piece of paper.

The counterargument is simple - ‘badges are not an indication of proficiency, they are a tool to aid your development as a coach.’

Why do I need one then? As Marc White says quite precisely, “what do you mean I need something to be something?” I can understand if I was a pilot, I’d need a qualification to know how to fly a plane, there are lives at stake. Additionally, if you work with children absolutely you should need a first aid and safeguarding certificate. But to manage a football team? There are bad managers everywhere with badges, what’s the worst that’s happened? They got sacked.

The other problem is how inaccessible badges are. If I wanted a UEFA A badge (this would qualify me as a professional coach regardless of where I am in the world) I’d need to sink upwards of $10,000 NZD to get it. That’s not even considering the wait times and rejections. It is a blatant monopoly, and an expensive one at that.

On top of this the only organisation that is allowed to issue you a badge is your confederations football governing body, further detracting from the accessibility of obtaining badges. It’s a system that needs a serious rework. I think a good start would be to find another way for people to become formally qualified outside of the local confederation and stop gatekeeping it as a way to make money.

As I said, because I was ill, I saw an opportunity in writing this piece later than I usually would. Two words, one man. Cameron Howieson. A man who is familiar to everyone who knows the New Zealand game. His journey is quite astounding and I thought it only fair to give the man his flowers after winning New Zealand its first A-League.

Howieson started his football journey at Mosgiel AFC, a club founded in 1913. When you look at his family structure it makes sense. His father, Dave, is a Scottish immigrant and former footballer. Scottish people have always had a strong connection with Dunedin, the town is named after Edinburgh (in Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Èideann) and was established as a Scottish settlement by the Free Church of Scotland in 1848.

Dave stepped in to coach the under 12 side when nobody else wanted to. It was very clear from the outset that Howieson was a talented player - even at under 12 level. Paul Moon during his interview with the Burnley Express recounts, “their side […] dominate[d] the grades […] with the younger Howieson either scoring or creating the bulk of Mosgiel’s goals.” As he progressed through Mosgiels ranks he would end up playing mens cup and reserve grade football at age 15 while attending Otago Boys’ High School. His high school coach Mike McGarry (an ex All-White with 87 caps) was quoted in the same interview, “His gifts were obvious to everyone playing with or against him. He has the ability to go a long way.”

Howieson’s footballing journey changed dramatically after he left Mosgiel for the Asia–Pacific Football Academy (APFA) at 15. He won a scholarship to the live-in academy which was connected to Everton’s coaching network. While he was there he was identified as a player who had all of the minerals and markings of a professional. One of Howieson’s mentors and former Burnley academy coach Graham McMann organised a Burnley Trial at 16. Howieson would go on to impress with two goals in a trial game against Carlisle United and so he was signed on a scholarship in July of 2011.

Howieson became the youngest New Zealander to ever feature in the EFL at 17 years and 103 days old beating Chris Wood’s record by 22 days (albeit, Wood’s was set in the Premier League) but overall Howieson’s professional career comparatively didn’t live up to the potential he had shown in his younger days. After being sent on loan to league one side Doncaster Rovers for a season he was released by Burnley making just two senior appearances.

At 20 years old Howieson would move to Scotland, trial successfully and sign a one year deal with St Mirren for the 15-16 season. He would score on his league debut against rangers in a 3-1 loss at a capacity (nearly 50,000) Ibrox stadium. He would be released at the end of the season and opted to return home despite rumours of other offers to keep him in Europe.

His first stop would be at Team Wellington for the 16-17 season but we all know that’s not what he’s known for. His stint at Auckland City would come the following season signing in January of 2017, he would go on to become the most recognisable player in the domestic football pyramid in New Zealand. The stats don’t lie, he won 12 trophies in his seven season at Auckland City including multiple OFC Champions Leagues and Premiership titles. In 2023 he took home the personal accolade of NZs Domestic men’s Player of the Year.

There’s a little known piece to Howieson’s footballing journey that kept him in New Zealand, despite offers for him to re-enter the full time gig overseas. Howieson met his wife Samantha in Manchester in 2014 while he was at Burnley and they made a deal. Howieson would return to New Zealand to try and reignite his love for the game which he felt he lost during his time in Scotland before making a return to Europe. It didn’t work out that way.

Cameron and Samantha now have two daughters and it’s Howieson’s commitment to his family that kept him in New Zealand. In his interview with the A league’s media team he said, “I've got a daughter that's in a wheelchair […]It's been my decision to stay locally. I still had the chances to go overseas and play professionally […]I wanted to be here for my family. My dad was always so loving to me and I just wanted to show my kids the same." There is a lot of publicly available information on the condition of Howieson’s family and out of respect I won’t include specifics here.

The man who thought he may never get the chance to go pro again finally got his break through the expansion team of Auckland FC. He was handed his career back in a way that became sustainable, and New Zealand is much better because of it! The grand final was an extra special night for Howieson, not because he won, not because he scored, not even because he won man of the match but because his family was there to watch him do it. "My wife and kids, it's their first time coming this season. My oldest girl's in a wheelchair, so it can be very tough for her to come to these games, but it was a special occasion tonight, and it was one that you know they wanted to come to. And what a game to come to."

Cue Lil Wayne 🎶 Let it all work out 🎶

This week’s coaching corner is probably the most common sense of the lot but I’ll explain anyway because we’ve already come this far.

The last two weeks have looked at the principles of session intention and constrain to afford. Our third principle is representative learning design (RLD), does training look, feel, smell, taste and sound like the game? Pretty straightforward and something every coach in any sport should endeavour to achieve. Let’s break it down.

RLD is so important to training for a multitude of reasons.
The first is something called action-fidelity. This just means that the solutions players develop in training must be transferrable to a game.

An example of this is shooting at an open goal with no defenders and no keeper. In a real game, there is (almost) always going to be defenders trying to close down a shot and a goalkeeper in the goal. Good training involves degrees of realism, where the solution the player chooses is also one they could choose in a game to the same degree of effectiveness. Shooting into an empty net teaches you nothing apart from how to shoot into an empty net. There is no point training for something that is never going to happen, because it doesn’t allow players to explore different ways of problem solving that they would have to utilise in a game.

The second reason why RLD is important is information flows. Football players make decisions based on information flows (teammate movements, ball position, opposition set up), for this reason it is important to limit the amount of artificial information you give to your team at training. Cones are a great example to use here.

Using cones or manikins as defenders isn’t useful for RLD because they provide artifical information. Cones don’t move, jockey, tackle or force players to scan the pitch. If players only practice passing or dribbling around fixed objects, then their focus becomes on the object rather than the space. If your team only practices dribbling around cones then their vision will be directed at the ground (trying to avoid the cone) rather than the space on the pitch which is a “non-functional” solution that won’t help them in a game (Cone drills still

Thirdly is Perception-Action Couplings.
At the crux of RLD is the link between what a player perceives and the corresponding action they take based on what they are perceiving. The reason it is a coupling is because one does not exist without the other. If in shooting training you remove perceptual cues like a defenders body shape or a goalkeepers positioning you ‘de-contextualise’ shooting. Without the appropriate context to perceive, players won’t know how or when to act. Always try to make sure that what yourplayers are perceiving is as close to the real game as possible so that they find highly effective solutions.

Lastly is Affective Learning Design or the feeling. Football is an emotional sport and that needs to be considered when building your trainings. The way to do this is to build intention and consequence into your trainings. Players need to feel there is consequences for success or failure. Without that pressure players may just ‘turn up, do a job, go home’ at an intensity you aren’t happy with as a coach. There are lots of ways of doing this but a great place to start is to always have ways to score for both attackers and defenders. For example, if an attacker shoots for goal and the defending team regain the ball through the keeper, build a transition in for the defenders to give them a way to score rather than just defending for the sake of it. This creates competition but also inbuilt consequence for poor shooting and fast transitional play.

TLDR: Does your training feel like the game? You can ask your players how they felt about training and oftentimes, they give you the answer!