An autoethnographical account of the impact of a coach education programme in preparing a newly qualified football coach.

Abstract

The primary aim of this research study was to report and investigate how a coach education programme impacted my preparation as a newly qualified football coach. An autoethnographical approach was adopted to present personalised accounts of my actual lived experiences of a Football Association Level 2 Certificate in Coaching Football. The short personal stories in this paper are based around three main themes and experiences that occurred whilst I completed the programme. The first sets of short stories are based on experiences on the coach education programme that had an impact upon my preparation as a coach. The second set of stories are based around experiences where the programme attempted to prepare me, as a coach, for the complex and dynamic nature of the coaching process. The final set of stories are based on my experiences where I felt I was being encouraged to be an original and imaginative new coach. The discussion chapter highlights how the programme had a limited impact on my development and preparation as a football coach. One of the main reasons for this limited impact on me as a coach was the emphasis on technical knowledge rather than on information that related to coaching. The effects of the power relationships that existed on the programme also had a negative impact on my development and preparation as a coach. My experiences also highlighted that the programme did not sufficiently prepare me, as a coach, to be able to work within the complex and dynamic environment that coaching exists within. Finally, through a general indoctrination approach to teaching, coach education is not encouraging the production of coaches who are “imaginative, dynamic and thoughtful” (Cushion et al., 2003, p. 216).