Interview with Pavl Williams

Background in football

I'm a Football Development Centre Coach in Manchester and the editor of grassroots coaching website BetterFootball.net. I write for FourFourTwo Performance in Austrialia/NZ (where my parent live) and have also coached in the USA, Ghana and China.

Other Interests

Whether to coach or otherwise, I travel a lot and have been to over 30 countries. Aside from that I'm very bookish, I studied Philosophy at University and I'm a Physics geek.

Biggest achievement in Sport

Finishing 3rd in a NW ten-pin bowling tournament, finished ahead of 29 fully-kitted out players despite using a house ball and borrowed shoes.

Most Memorable Moment

When a very introverted player from one of our junior teams - who had lost every game so far that season - collected the ball from our goalkeeper and dribbled all the way up the pitch, around the opposition keeper and passed the ball in to the net for his first ever goal. You could see his confidence growing with every touch and by the time he reached the opposition box he was moving like Messi and it was obvious he was going to score. We'd been working on close control the session before and it was if he'd found the thing he was comfortable with.

Most Embarrassing Moment

I was delivering a session which was supposed to demonstrate the advantages of our training style to a group of assembled grassroots coaches. But I was so wrapped up in the explanation to the coaches that I completely forgot to pass in the extra balls which were required. So whilst I pontificated about the extra number of touches players would be getting, they were - as I turned around and realised to my horror -  just a huge pack chasing a single ball around the area.

Ambitions for next 5 years

On a personal development level I am looking to get on the earliest available FA Youth Award Module 3 as I've really enjoyed the previous Modules and would like to attain an age-appropriate Level 3 qualification. I'm also going to continue along the traditional coaching pathway and take some of the supplementary modules which I've heard good things about.

I'm fully intent on continuing to spread new ideas and examples of good practice to grassroots coaches and emphasis on youth development and enjoyment over the short-sighted win-this-weekend mentality.

Best player played against/with

I was fortunate enough to play in a friendly match in Barcelona along with a number of Spanish ex-pros whose touch and vision was exceptional. But by far the best I've played with is Andrew Cole; he took part in one of the coach development evenings I was a part of and was a model of attacking movement, awareness and sharp finishing.

Best player coached

At our development centre we're involved with a number of boys who are in and around the academies at Manchester United, City, Liverpool and Bolton so there is a lot of talent which we think has the potential to go far but it would be unfair to give their names out!

Approaching the question from a different angle, the most enjoyable players to coach are often those who have no delusions of grandeur but are merely there for fun or to play with friends. Helping these players to realise they can pull off some of the skills they see their heroes perform on TV - and which they never imagined they could coerce their bodies in to - is more rewarding because it is the kind of change which might make the difference between them drifting away in their early teens and playing for life.

If you could change one thing with the FA what would you do?

Overnight I'd divert 25% of the FA Cup prize fund and 100% of England senior side's appearance payments to educating grassroots coaches. I think we should expect any lead coach in an FA-affiliated junior club should have, or be working towards, a minimum Level 2 or Youth Award 2 qualification. We should also expect every FA Charter Standard club to have at least one UEFA 'B' (or higher) coach involved in their set-up.

Undoubtedly this would be better for the players, but the only way we can approach anything like this standard is by subsidising coaching courses and running them in more convenient times. The people who already give so much to volunteer at their local clubs shouldn't also be burdened with costs of £300+ and need to take a week off work if they want to improve their skills.

Pavl is a fantastic grassroots coach and another excellent coaching website please check out http://betterfootball.net/

Pavl is always on Twitter and can be found on Twitter