Volunteer Coaches & Managers

Coach Information:

The following is some information about coaching, whether it be your first entry into the coaching space or if you are a regular coach who is always looking for improvement and growth opportunities.

Firstly, if you are reading this because you have put your hand up to coach, or are seriously considering putting your hand up, Thank You.  Without people like yourself offering to coach, the players don’t get an opportunity to learn and grow and simply aren’t able to compete at the level they should be able to.

Why be a coach?

A coach doesn’t have to have a great knowledge of the sport they just need to be willing, enthusiastic and able to commit time to their team.

Some of the main reasons people coach are:

• to help develop future sports people,
• to pass on experience and knowledge to a younger generation
• to be part of the community sports teams.

SportNZ says “coaching is a great way to express passion for sport and enrich the lives of New Zealanders. It's exciting and satisfying, and helps keep people actively involved in developing others.”  They also provide an excellent Coaches Code of Ethics which gives some great guidance to the expectations of a good coach:

1: Respect the rights, dignity and worth of every individual athlete as a human being

Treat everyone equally regardless of sex, disability, ethnic origin or religion. Respect the talent, development stage and goals of each athlete in order to reach their full potential.

2: Maintain a high standard of integrity

Operate within the rules of the sport and in the spirit of fair play, while encouraging your athletes to do the same. Advocate a sporting environment free of drugs and other performance-enhancing substances within the guidelines of the New Zealand Sports Drug Agency and the World Anti-Doping Code. Do not disclose any confidential information relating to athletes without their written prior consent.

3: Be a positive role model for the sport and athletes and act in a way that projects a positive image of coaching

All athletes are deserving of equal attention and opportunities. Ensure the athlete’s time spent with you is a positive experience. Be fair, considerate and honest with athletes. Encourage and promote a healthy lifestyle – refrain from smoking and drinking alcohol around athletes.

4: Professional responsibilities

Display high standards in your language, manner, punctuality, preparation and presentation. Display control, courtesy, respect, honesty, dignity and professionalism to all involved within the sphere of sport – this includes opponents, coaches, officials, administrators, the media, parents and spectators. Encourage your athletes to demonstrate the same qualities. Be professional and accept responsibility for your actions. You should not only refrain from initiating a sexual relationship with an athlete but should also discourage any attempt by an athlete to initiate a sexual relationship with you, explaining the ethical basis of your refusal. Accurately represent personal coaching qualifications, experience, competence and affiliations. Refrain from criticism of other coaches and athletes.

5: Make a commitment to providing a quality service for your athletes

Seek continual improvement through ongoing coach education, and other personal and professional development opportunities. Provide athletes with planned and structured training programmes appropriate to their needs and goals. Seek advice and assistance from professionals when additional expertise is required. Maintain appropriate records.

6: Provide a safe environment for training and competition

Adopt appropriate risk management strategies to ensure that the training and/or competition environment is safe. Ensure equipment and facilities meet safety standards. Ensure equipment, rules, training and the environment are appropriate for the age, physical and emotional maturity, experience and ability of the athletes. Show concern and caution toward sick and injured athletes. Allow further participation in training and competition only when appropriate. Encourage athletes to seek medical advice when required. Provide a modified training programme where appropriate. Maintain the same interest and support toward sick and injured athletes as you would to healthy athletes.

7: Protect your athletes from any personal abuse

Refrain from any form of verbal, physical or emotional abuse towards your athletes. Refrain from any form of sexual or racial harassment, whether verbal or physical. Do not harass, abuse or discriminate against athletes on the basis of their sex, marital status, sexual orientation, religious or ethical beliefs, race, colour, ethnic origins, employment status, disability or distinguishing characteristics. Any physical contact with athletes should be appropriate to the situation and necessary for the athlete’s skill development. Be alert to any forms of abuse directed towards athletes from other sources while in your care.

 

Is there someone in the club who can help me learn to coach or share ideas with?

Yes!  We have a senior leadership team who are all willing to assist anyone who needs help.  We use a group social media app called TeamReach where you can contact any of the leadership team or other coaches for help, thoughts and ideas. 

We also offer a coaching course via NRF for coaches and managers to get their Level 1 and/or Level 2 coaching certificate and provide ideas and confidence to run a successful season.  This will be held at Shoesmith Domain in pre-season and we strongly encourage everyone to attend.  The more skills you have in your coaching toolbox the more both you and your team will get out of the season.

 

Where are some good places to find coaching material and training ideas?

The internet provides a huge range of sources for coaching but here are some places we recommend you try first:

• Sport NZ – Coaching and Coach Development – sportnz.org/coaching-and-development/coaching/ - this has a huge range of printable resources and online training you can do
• NRF – Coaching Calendar, Pathways, Resources, Junior Coaching Videos – nrf.org.nz then click on the Coaching menu
• NZ Football – the Fit4Football program is about Enhancing Performance Through Prevention and has some great ideas for warm-up programmes aimed at preventing injury – fit4football.co.nz. NZ Football have also combined with McDonald’s to provide a coaching app called CoachMate which provides practice plans for First Kicks through to Youth Football – head to your app store to download it and access
• Instagram sites:
  • Grassrootscoachingdrills

 

How do I communicate with my team?

The coach can operate at their best when they have a manager who supports them. WWAFC work to provide support and training for both coaches and managers so that each team has this leadership and can ensure the season runs as seamlessly as possible.

Our preferred communication tool is the social media app TeamReach and WWAFC will provide training to the coaches and managers pre-season to ensure you use it as effectively as possible and can explain to the players, parents and supporters how to use it as well.

Training

The minimum expectation is that the team trains once a week for one hour.  We prefer that the trainings for Junior and Youth Football grades occur on either a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday evening between 5pm-8pm.  This ensures the “club buzz” is created with other teams training at the same time (if training on a Wednesday then the juniors will get to see the seniors turn up and train) and gives coaches other teams to train with/against and provides all-round support.  Timings will be discussed at the Coaches/Managers evening pre-season so that we ensure the allocated days work for everyone in terms of space and availability of time.

Manager Information:

Firstly, THANK YOU for offering to manage a team – without your help, it all falls on the coach’s shoulders and their role should be focussing on the player’s development, not the admin and team management. 

This role is key to ensuring the whole team has a great season.  The coach will lean on you to get their messaging out to the team and parents, and the players and parents need to know about trainings and games (or postponements/cancellations) in advance so that plans can be made/adjusted in preparation.  A great manager is one that juggles and filters all the messages and gets them out in a timely manner.

There are a few ways of doing this and the club will hold a coach’s/manager’s evening to let you know what their expectations are as key representatives of the club.  A few of those duties are:

• Managing the team messaging via the TeamReach app – this includes helping everyone join the app, sending welcome messages to the team, setting up the training and game schedule in the app, providing post-game positive messaging and passing on any club messages.
• Messaging with the other WWAFC club coaches and managers via the TeamReach app – this is how we discuss trainings, any issues, any club messaging and how we report the game results back to the Club Administrator post-match.
• Liaising with the coach on a weekly basis to see if there are any changes before or after training
• Monitoring the NRF website each week to check for any game time/location changes (Note: changes have been known to occur even on Friday night so it is important a final check is always made)
• Helping the coach rotate the subs on game day (if required)

To be great hosts and develop our club culture, we are introducing the provision of a small after-match function by the home teams for home games so that we can socialise with the opposition and thank them for commuting to our club.  This will be a requirement for the players to provide but does not need to be onerous and is just a nice gesture that results in clubs enjoying their trip to Warkworth and shows the younger players excellent hospitality skills.

Here are some further ideas of how to be a great manager:

Teamwork:

• We know you are a volunteer who likely has many other commitments so there’s nothing wrong with asking another parent who regularly attends trainings and/or games to assist at those sessions if you can’t make them.
• The key is to develop a good relationship with the other parents so they help out as much as possible – don’t feel you have to do everything, just ask for help picking up cones or moving goals or whatever is needed – everyone will feel more like part of a team if that’s how you work together.

Trainings:

• Be there in case parents have any questions.
• Chat to everyone as it creates a better sideline/team atmosphere if parents all get along and stand together to support the kids at the games.
• Check in with the coach if he has any issues/concerns.
• Confirm who will/won’t be at the game that weekend so you’re not waiting around for people to turn up and remind the parents to indicate their attendance on the TeamReach calendar event.
• Remind the person who is responsible for half time oranges/mandarins that it is their turn that weekend (setting up a roster in advance makes this easier – an idea is to make the person who won Player Of The Day last week to be responsible for the half time oranges/mandarins this week
• Check that all kids have transport to/from the game and if not, arrange for you/coach/someone else to take them

Game Days:

• Attend the game – usually you and the coach will be there first to determine what field you are playing on and to set up on the sideline there – usually there is a blackboard/whiteboard somewhere obviously with the field numbers/allocations
• Introduce yourself to the other team’s coach and manager (and welcome them if we are playing at home), agree who will ref each half (usually we supply a ref to do one half and then the opposition does the other half), compare the score at half-time and full-time, record the full-time score in Team Reach on your calendar event and also on the Coaches/Managers TeamReach app, confirm player numbers for each team – if we are short, and they have more, then usually they’ll get one of their kids to play for us and vice versa – or reduce player numbers on the field to make it work – it’s flexible
• If the coach doesn’t have an alternative method, try the Coach Any app for running the subs (or have it delegated/rostered so that the other parents take turns to do it too
• Keep a list of who has played goalie and make sure everyone gets a turn (if that is how your team decides to do it)
• Towards the end of the game, liaise with the coach (or parents if the coach delegates to them) to determine who had the best day (and for what reason) and complete the Player Of The Day certificate ready for the presentation post-match (which either you or the coach will normally do).
• It is also a nice idea to give a Player of the Day chocolate fish to someone from the other team. It is always well-received and shows the kids good sportsmanship towards the opposition.  Get the plyers to decide who deserve it and choose one of the team to hand it over and explain why – again this is  good skill for the players to learn.   The cost of this usually comes out of the manager or coaches pocket but that is up to your team if you want to do that – an idea could also be to ask the person bringing the mandarins to also bring a chocolate fish.
• Keep a list of who got Player of the Day (you can do that in the game notes on Team Reach) so you make sure everyone has a turn and can maintain a stats record which will be helpful for end-of-season prizegiving awards.

Game Rules:

• To improve your experience of the game and supporting the players, getting up speed with the rule and regulations is key, for both the manager and the supporting parents. You can find more information and resources from the NRF website or by going to:
• Junior U9 – U12 - https://www.nrf.org.nz/junior-football-u9u12/upper-harbourwaitakere-junior-fixtures and under Resources, select Competition Regulations

 

Above all, just relax and do your best – you’ve already hit the AWESOME list by putting your hand up to help.  If you need any further support, please get in touch with admin@warkworthfc.org or put a request onto the Coaches and Managers TeamReach app.