Dear Editor: Girls’ football development should start in primary schools—not in High Performance programme

“[…] If we were really serious, the powers that be would have engaged the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Sport about having PE teachers educated on introducing and coaching girls at the primary school level.

“[…] We seem not to have the patience or appetite to do things correctly, so instead we do things to make it seem as if we are doing something…”

The following Letter to the Editor on Trinidad and Tobago’s current Girls High Performance setup, in the wake of the team’s showing at the CFU Girls U14 Challenge Series, was submitted to Wired868 by Wayne ‘Barney’ Sheppard, who is head coach at QPCC FC and Arima North Secondary:

If we were really interested in developing local women footballers, it does not take a rocket scientist to see we are starting at an incorrect point along the development curve.

If we were really serious, the powers that be would have engaged the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Sport about having PE teachers educated on introducing and coaching girls at the primary school level.

The decision of what is to be coached, how it is to be coached and when it is to be coached would be outlined in a TTFA/ Fifa document to guide coaches.

Time will be spent initially bringing these PE teachers up to coaching levels necessary to introduce this method, where they make basic football skills/ training a part of PE.

(The same should be done for netball as well but I will stick with football as that is what we are discussing).

By doing so, we immediately have an increase in two important commodities:

1. players;
2. coaches who can competently work with female players.

These students would be playing from five or six years old, all through their primary school years.

This, in turn, will see a growth in the number of girls taking up the sport outside of school. The knock-on effect of this would be parents searching for football clubs to send their daughters.

So instead of seeing the novelty of one talented girl training and playing with a boys under-8 team in a local club tournament, we will be seeing under-8 girls teams from various clubs playing against each other.

These teams will need coaches, so the very same PE teachers (if they are really devoted to coaching) will find themselves coaching at some of these clubs.

So at age 12 or 13, when you decide you want to have a high performance setup, you would have had:

1. A pool of girls who have been playing the sport for six to seven years, from which you can select the most talented;
2. A pool of PE teachers-cum-coaches who have been following the development guidelines for girls for the last six to seven years, from which you can pick the most dedicated and open minded.

At this point, you can now introduce a Fifa talent expert!!!! He has both players and staff to work with.

I have met and spoken to Mr Kevin McGreskin. I also attended a coaching symposium the other day where, when other development coaches heard I was from Trinidad, they immediately asked for Mr McGreskin and spoke highly of him.

I got that same impression from my interactions with him and with other local coaches who worked with him.

I point this out to state I don’t believe Mr McGreskin is the issue, as some might be tempted to believe. But he, in my very humble opinion, has been placed in a situation where a hiding to nothing is the reality.

We seem not to have the patience or appetite to do things correctly, so instead we do things to make it seem as if we are doing something.

Those with eyes and better sense can discern one from the other.

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Wayne 'Barney' Sheppard

Wayne Sheppard is the Arima North Secondary technical director and ex-Men’s National U-15 assistant coach. He holds a TTFA ‘B’ coaching license and diplomas from USC, CANOC and TTOC.
He is the co-host of the Burdie and Barney Show and a former T&T National U-23 and U-17 player.