Jeremy Healey might not be a name you are to familiar with but he is carving out a reputation in the States with Arsenal FC (USA).
He is currently their Director of Coaching and is responsible for over 68 teams and 1,100 players between the ages of 6 and 19, as well as fielding visits from the likes of
Arsenal legend Steve Morrow.
Pre-season tournaments saw them face the likes of
Manchester United, Sao Paulo, Inter Milan and Paris St Germain, with Healey continuing to push the club forward.
However, it was the PFA who helped put Healey on the track to coaching stardom when they sent him on his very first coaching badge back in England in the early nineties.
His playing career was wrecked by a series of injuries, but this is a heart-warming story and will prove an inspiration to any young players currently worrying about their future in the game. He has been out in California since 1994 and has seen first hand the changes that have seen the MLS grow into the professional organisation it is today.
The former
Birmingham City apprentice has a valuable insight on the growth of coaching in the United States and is yet another success story for the PFA as he told Givemefootball’s Ian Clarkson.
Q: You left Birmingham City after your apprenticeship in 1989 - when did you move out to the USA?
A: I moved out to California in 1994. This was the year that the USA hosted the World Cup. There was a huge spike of interest in the game at the youth level and without a real professional league yet to be established there were opportunities for young coaches such as me to earn a living from coaching at the youth level.
Q: How did the PFA help you?
A: At Birmingham City, our PFA Rep was Des Bremner. When I left Birmingham he went out of his way to help me set a path for the future and put everything in perspective. He put me in touch with the right people at the PFA and they helped me get started with my Licensing (Coaching badges).
Q: How did you first get involved with coaching, and where?
A: I left Birmingham after a couple of years and then spent a year at
Derby County. During this time I had my first torn anterior cruciate ligament. During my recovery the PFA put me in touch with Tom Stack at the Birmingham County FA. I had done my FA. Preliminary Badge while at Birmingham City, but this was the first time I was the ‘coach’.
Q: How did it develop from there?
A: I spent some time working on camps and school programs before I got a job with Ron Wiley and Warwick Adams at
Aston Villa.
I learned a lot from this experience. I had been very lucky to have been coached by some great coaches while at
West Ham, Birmingham and Derby, but as a player I never really thought about, or realised how much work, organisation and preparation went in to putting on a session or organizing a team and their season.
I remember Ron would walk his dog around the Villa training ground at Bodymoor Heath scouring the fields for details that weren’t quite right with your session or your appearance. If your cones weren’t in a perfectly straight line or the space you were working in wasn’t right, or your socks weren’t pulled up you had better watch out for a tongue lashing from the Scot.
This was my first experience of professional coaching at least from the coaching side of the fence. I loved it and I wanted to learn more and more but there weren’t that many opportunities to work each day coaching. It was more of a part time job – some evenings and some school holidays at camps. This is why when I got the job opportunity to go to the US and coach, I jumped at the chance.
Q: Has there been a big change over the years in the calibre of coaching in the USA?
A: Undoubtedly! When I first came out here there were not enough coaches that had played the game or even understood the game at a very basic level. We used to train our teams on a spare corner of a baseball field if the baseball coach would let us and even then half the time you were dodging baseball’s that were flying through your session.
Now there are soccer specific facilities in every town and city and with some clubs such as mine having our very own 50 acre, state of the art soccer specific training and game day facility. We have 22 full size grass pitches including a championship Academy pitch and 60 goals to use whenever and where ever we want.
As far as an environment to work, train and play it can’t be beaten. I think the game in general has improved. It has more of a structure to it and from the grass roots all the way to the National team. Each level of development has a well planned and thought out structure. The U.S. Soccer Federation and State organizations do a very good job with their coach education programs in which I am involved.
Q: Are there still areas for improvement?
A: The area that is still a concern is how soccer is integrated into the American culture. The quality of facilities and coaching is improving but that can only go so far in developing players and the game out here.
The piece of the puzzle that is missing is the mentality of the majority of players. The only time a lot of our players play is in a controlled environment with a coach in an “organised practice”. The effects of which can be seen in the style of play over here which in general tends to be very controlled, very predictable and lacking in creativity and problem solving (thinking outside of the box).
At Arsenal we are trying to encourage a mix of instruction and free play, but getting the players to come and play in their own time is like ‘pulling teeth’ sometimes.
Read more from Healey next time on Givemefootball…
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