What is our football DNA?
by Paul Cooper
“My position is this: street soccer is the most natural educational system that can be found” Rinus Michels
Englishness
There has been much soul searching after England’s abject showing in the World Cup and how we should progress in terms of developing players.
The chatter from the FA points to, ‘building a system around the culture and DNA that is our ‘Englishness’ because we aren’t Spain or Brazil.’
If one was asked what that football DNA is it would probably be ‘get stuck in, don’t give an inch, and fight to the last’…although during the World Cup that would be a more suitable description of the Dutch and not the English.
But who chooses what that DNA is? The FA, coaches, the players, kids?
Four Acres
Every Tuesday evening in a Gloucestershire market town Give Us Back Our Game runs an 11 a side session for local teenagers and young men aged 14-25 from a local estate at Four Acres. A very simple set up. Two inflatable 21×7 goals are put up on a grassy area close to the estate and some cones around the outside mark the touchlines. Around 30-40 players turn up and they pick the teams and referee their own games. I act as a time keeper with teams rotating every 10 minutes.
The players are mixed ability with some playing for local clubs. Some have drug and alcohol issues and the main refreshment during breaks is roll ups, some of which contain various substances.
A good bunch of lads but if provoked a number of them will not take any nonsense and are handy with their fists.
What a good opportunity to reinforce the ‘English football DNA’ – tough tackling, aggressive, no nonsense and plenty of fouls and arguments, especially with no referee and marked out penalty areas.
But the reality is far different. What we get is the freedom for creative play with a great deal of dribbling, players taking on 3 or 4 players at a time. Teams build from the back, quick, short passes, lots of give and goes, flicks and intelligent movement off the ball. Long balls are in the main diagonal 30, 40 yard passes, switching play and picking out a player in space, everyone trying to outdo the other through creative play
“Like their Dutch and German contemporaries, the mavericks were self-taught, and had learnt their football on the streets of austere, war-damaged cities. Their crime, when they reached maturity in the late sixties and early seventies, was sensuality. They caressed the ball, made it obey their whims and desires, performed outrageous tricks, and scored dazzling goals.” – Those Feet by David Winner
(The mavericks were Osgood, Bowles, Hudson, Marsh, Worthington, George and Currie)
In the last 2 hour session there were two fouls. This will be mirrored up and down the country in the ever dwindling street /informal football scene.
This is the same environment that produced many great creative ball players in the past, Hoddle, Hudson, Haynes, Curry and Stan Bowles etc, something that the English academies seem unable to do but thrive in most other foreign counties.
Shame the DNA is not based on the teenagers and young men playing at Four Acres and other such venues around the land.
“I watch academy games and I see humdrum stuff all the time. I don’t see anything exciting or exceptional.” Alex Ferguson
