Lucy Pearson, FA Head of Education on women participation, mental health and preparing the next gen of footballers

The national home of football, St. George’s Park celebrated its 10th-anniversary last week. Opened by HRH Prince William in October 2012, the site has overseen and underpinned an era of success, inclusivity, and progression for English football, with twelve England tournament wins, including this summer’s success for the Lionesses and the European U19 Men’s Championship. The Playknox spoke with Lucy Pearson, Director of The Football Association (FA) Education to know more about the program.

 

 

Are you working with schools in the community?

 

Yes, we have a number of coach developers who are working in certain specific areas. There is a group who are our PE team and they work with community trusts. They work with the Premier League Primary Stars program and are working to up-skill teachers and support teachers who deliver football, whether in primary or secondary schools. So that’s one group.

 

We’ve got a second group across grassroots who are getting more females into coaching and then supporting females in coaching because that is an area of real need and drive for us.

 

And then the third area is around diversifying the footballing workforce by appealing in particular or working with communities from historically underrepresented groups, particularly around black coaches, and Asian coaches. So those are kind of in the grassroots are three areas of emphasis, whilst we’re also supporting any and every coach in the game through often digital means or by face-to-face support.

 

How are you ensuring a diverse and inclusive culture within the organisation?

 

Yeah, we’ve been doing this for about two years now. The first thing you have to do is develop the relationship and the trust because, for whatever reason, certain communities, certain groups, and certain individuals may have felt that formal football wasn’t for them. It wasn’t necessarily a place where they felt wholly welcome. So our colleagues are working with community champions, so leaders in those communities and saying, “How can we help you with the people you’re trying to help?” And we’ve seen some brilliant uptake, particularly around females stepping into the game, even as sort of playmakers.

 

They may not be the lead coach but they are assistant coaches. Of course, we have a period of time when a lot of females were thinking about helping out in a club and may not have necessarily played themselves, so they can be put off by the language of football. But actually, when you talk to them about all that, you give them a party at home for their seven-year-old and they will be super organized, being able to diversify all of their offers. You put them on a football pitch. They worry that those skills aren’t good enough. So sometimes it’s about helping those communities and those individuals see that you have all these fantastic skills and experiences that you can bring to the game. So we’re definitely seeing traction across these areas, but it is a relatively slow burn because we have to forge those relationships first. 

 

What are other challenges you face?

 

I think fundamentally it’s more relationship-driven. Sometimes it’s a matter of finance. So if we go into some communities where there is a high level of poverty, for example, we would be looking to show them how they can get onto the courses at no expense to them as we offer financial support. We offer fully funded places across our grassroots courses. Sometimes it’s about a perception that we have to challenge around whether it’s gender or knowledge. 

 

And other times it’s around the opportunity around coaching and all. There isn’t a single sweet spot in many ways to reckon with. That is one thing and it’s a bit of a tapestry and you have to work at it across several areas at the same time to have an impact. 

 

 

And are we focusing enough on the mental health of these athletes?  

 

Yeah, I think we do a lot of work in the physical health space, obviously with first aid, and then sort of advanced their way through to advanced trauma medicine, which is what we’ll see when you have an incident like families and people going out that. I think the mental health and well-being piece is increasingly becoming an element of what we talk about. But it is as much about what we talk to people about and the environment that we create that allows someone to feel comfortable and they will all raise their hand to ask for help. We can’t have a coach trying to be an expert in all areas. It’s a bit like asking your teacher to be able to go over your subject and pastoral care and everything.

 

I think we have to be quite clear that if you create a really safe environment where the person feels comfortable to be themselves and also create a culture that allows people to admit when they are struggling, you’re winning the battle. We want to be preventative, not curative.

 

 

Do you work closely with parents of the young footballers?

 

Though we don’t as we are really around the coaches and also don’t deal directly with the young people ourselves. But we are very much about helping the coaches who are working with the young people. Now parents are part of that equation, but it’s very much again about how do we help the coaches to manage the parents and manage expectations and to create the right culture. Because there’s no doubt that, as you say, there is a huge desire in young people to make it as a footballer. The reality is very, very few do. And our job is to try and provide the very best coaching to give every individual the best opportunity they can to be their best. 

 

You are an ex-cricketer working within the football industry. Was the transition smooth or different?

 

It is the same sort of technology and the same sort of challenges. There is a lot of similarities, particularly when I look at the women’s game and the concept of evolution, investment, infrastructure, the move to professionalization contracts, and payments. They’re the same topics.

 

I absolutely see the pressure of being an international performer, whether you’re a male or a female, the pressure of a schedule whether you’re male or female, the pressure between club and country whether you’re male or female. Those things are very similar but I think I think there is some brilliant cross-referencing between sports at the top level. I think we have leaders in Serena and Gareth as coaches who will inevitably go and they’re curious, they go to other sports to learn. They are learners fundamentally. So I think that we can learn a lot from what’s happening with our fellow sports, whilst also recognizing that football has a very particular place in the sporting hearts of this country.

 

What’s the vision way forward?

 

Yes, it is a real privilege working here at SGP and combining our coach Education Division with its medical and technical directors with the national teams because clearly, the national teams are at the forefront of high performance and what brilliant football looks like, what brilliant player care looks like. And we have the conversations and that interweaving of what’s happening there about well, how does that filtrate down into a grassroots coach who is looking after an under-9s now, you don’t want them to play like the England seniors do because they’re under-9 but there are some probably some principles of play or some brilliant basics that we would want to help those coaches get. So that those players can potentially go on to be our next England Lion or Lioness. 

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