October half-term proved to be the opportunity of a lifetime for four lucky young coaches who traveled with The FA to Trinidad & Tobago as part of the International Project 'Changing Lives'. This is an account of their week.
Laurisa Robson, Jay Amin and Victoria Summerfield were picked from The FA’s National Leadership & Volunteering Camp in July 2011 out of 103 Football Leaders to represent The FA in Trinidad and Tobago on The FA International Leadership and Volunteering Changing Lives programme. Changing Lives provides FA Leaders with the opportunity to work with and develop leaders from Trinidad and Tobago and deliver coaching sessions and festivals to primary school children between the ages of 6-11. FA Leader Stuart Brown a second year Loughborough university student was selected as a reward for his dedication and commitment to the national programme as leader, mentor and role model after joining the programme in 2008.
Upon arrival at Piarco International Airport in Trinidad, the leaders and staff spent their first morning adjusting to the immense heat and time difference. To help familiarise the leaders with working with young people in Trinidad and in the heat conditions, the group were taken to St. Michael’s boys’ home where they would spend the remainder of the afternoon.
On entry to the home we soon realised it was a young offender’s institution for boys aged between 10 and 18 rather than an orphanage for boys between the ages of 6 and 10 that we thought had been arranged! The butterflies were well and truly stationed within the stomachs of our leaders who had to think on the spot about how they could adapt their sessions and approach for the afternoon.
We were taken to the canteen where the boys were waiting for us and Donna McIvor (National Development Manager for Education) introduced herself and her team to the boys and gave everyone the chance to ask each other questions. As you can imagine, The FA leaders asked about football in Trinidad and the boys asked about the Premier League and the Senior Men’s England team with one boy even wearing an England shirt for us!
After a quick introduction with everyone, the majority of butterflies flew away so we headed to the playing field where we split the boys into 4 groups and started off with a few warm up games before we headed into small sided games under the guidance of FA National Development Manager for Youth and Mini Soccer, Nick Levett and PE teachers John Heathcote and Sharon Muxworthy.
Once the balls got rolling and the hearts pumped faster, the smiles began to show and once again we were able to demonstrate the power of football in what can sometimes appear as the most uncomfortable of situations.
Monday morning arrived and while Donna McIvor was conducting a TV appearance on Trinidad’s Wake and Shine breakfast programme our first stop was Par-May-Lays Inn where we picked up 12 of the 20 of our Trinidad and Tobago (TT) leaders - it was a bit of a relief to see the nervousness on their faces as well as ours!
We then headed off to the British Councils office where we would spend the day getting to know the full 20 TT leaders. The leaders were split into groups supported by The FA leaders and were briefed on the week ahead. Leadership through football theory and practical sessions then took place at the King George V Park facilities. The British Council High Commissioner joined the group in the afternoon to show his appreciation of the programme and wish everyone good luck for the week.
With day 1 completed and The FA leaders and the TT leaders a lot more acquainted as well as Amreeta Bola (Administration and Media) and Nick Levett unfortunately acquainted with a horrific downpour of Caribbean rain we all made our way back to the hotel ready for a full day of coaching on Tuesday.
Tuesday morning arrived and we headed back to King George V Park where we set up, this time with a tent (which in hindsight would have been very useful on Monday!) and waited for the first set of school children to coach.
In true Caribbean style, 1 hour and 10 minutes passed before the children finally arrived, but with this eventuality planned for the leaders were still able to carry on with their warm ups and games as practiced the day before.
During set up for the afternoon session, we were joined by the President of The Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation, Oliver Camps. It was a great pleasure to have Oliver’s presence at the Park and an honour for him to see what The FA were doing first hand in Trinidad and Tobago.
An early wakeup call was in order for Wednesday morning as the leaders had to embark on a 2 hour journey through the intricate forest roads to Toco, in the north east of the island where we spent the day at Toco Secondary School with local primary schools being bussed in to attend the sessions.
Wednesday presented many challenges for the leaders, from Jay who had to adapt a session for someone with an injury, to Stuart who had to take on a more motivational role and reassure and guide his group of TT leaders who have never coached before. Before we knew it again, the day had ended and The FA Leaders were ecstatic with the way their days had gone and had nothing but praise for their groups. Victoria had taken some advice given to her by her mentor and as a result delivered a fantastic session, this of course was after she reined her group of children in from running into the wilderness during one of her warm up games (!) and Laurisa was able to use her strengths within coaching to help the weaknesses of her team of TT leaders.
Thursday, our final day of coaching arrived which called for an even earlier alarm clock as we were flying to Tobago. Full of energy even though it was incredibly early the party boarded the plane eager with what the day had ahead.
We arrived at Tobago Airport and were driven to Shaw Park Grounds where most people took that as an opportunity to have a quick snooze before the day ahead which felt like it was going to be a scorcher as it hadn’t reached 8am and already everyone looked like they had been sat in a sauna for the past two hours!
We reached the grounds where news quickly began to spread that we didn’t have any children to work with and the schools wouldn’t be coming! As a result our coaches John Heathcote and Nick Levett stepped in and offered to spend the morning coaching all 24 leaders in the grounds of Shaw Park.
Once that was decided our Changing Lives Project Officer arrived with the news that the local primary schools Head Teacher very kindly offered to give us a class of 40 boys and girls to coach for the morning. The leaders quickly re-set their pitches and got to work without any complaints. The sun was beaming down and even the leaders from Trinidad said they very rarely experienced heat like this, so I’m sure you can imagine - it was hot! Regardless of this, the leaders and children gave 100% and had a brilliant morning finishing with a presentation congratulating the TT leaders for their efforts and achievements throughout the week.
The day finished off at the beach in Pigeon Point with lunch, volleyball in the water, football on the sand, new ideas and knowledge amongst all leaders and staff with everyone’s smiles indicating they had a fantastic experience and made friends for life.