Differing schools of thought

Choosing a secondary school for your children can be a complicated matter; there are league tables to consider, the opinions of other parents whose children attend or have attended, proximity to home and catchment area, to name only a few. However, if your son or daughter displays an aptitude for Football (Soccer) in Scotland (United Kingdom) it is likely that you will have an additional consideration: should you send them to a school that incorporates football training into their curriculum? Schools that, in partnership with outside organisations (in this case the nations governing body for football, the Scottish Football Association), allow their students to undertake football training as part of the syllabus, integrated into the daily learning schedule and treated like any other subject, have become known as performance schools. These schools and the initiatives under which they were created have the remit of exposing the best young players in the country to more training, more often and in an effort to enhance their technical and tactical development over and above training only with their club.

Everything comes back into fashion if you wait long enough. School football is no exception; we don’t have to go back too far into the past to recall a time when the majority of development activities organised for young players were delivered through the school system. In an attempt to professionalise the development of young players, however, clubs began to establish their own academies in which they could control the training content for each age group and individual therein. Academies, over time, began to discourage their players from training or playing with other teams, particularly their school. This, presumably, was to ensure that the information and stimulus provided to young players was consistent. The unintended consequence was that academies could not replicate the volume of training that young players had previously received in the school and club environment. An issue exacerbated when clubs began to bring in players from further afield and more time being spent travelling than actually practising. So, we find ourselves back in a position where schools are required to play an important part on the development of young athletes.

Beware of round numbers.

Part of the drive to create more opportunities for young athletes to practise was the belief that insufficient time was being spent ‘on task’, or, more popularly, we were not creating an environment that delivered 10,000 hours of ‘deliberate’ practise. Whether you buy into this notion of accumulated practise time, or at least that it can be quantified using a conveniently round number (which I don’t) it does reinforce an important message for young people; if they want to master something, you need to practise. The issue with allocating a number to this is that organisations, even large ones that should know better, try to manufacture ways in which young athletes can reach the target through a systematic programme of training. Indeed, when the English Premier League launched their Elite Player Performance Plan they cited the 10,000 hour rule in their documentation, highlighting the shortfall in practise hours young footballers might encounter compared to other sports such as tennis or swimming. As a practical example, my daughter who is 5 already does more organised Gymnastics practise than my son who is 8 for his Rugby League and AFL teams.

The phrase “10,000 hour rule” was coined and popularised in the New York Times bestselling book Outliers, authored by Malcolm Gladwell and published in 2008. The original scientific article, from which the conclusions regarding the number of practise hours required to be successful were drawn, was published much earlier, in 1993, by Ericsson et al in the academic journal Psychological Review.

Whilst many readers will be familiar with this phraseology, fewer will be aware that Ericsson and colleagues were studying Violinists, not athletes. In what has proved to be an influential study that has captured the imaginations of many policy makers, the researchers asked 40 violinists, of varying technical proficiency, to estimate how many hours of ‘deliberate’ practise (truly focused training) they had engaged in throughout their development. In summary, the best best violinists reported having completed an average of 10,000 hours of deliberate practise by the time they reached 20 years of age. This value was higher than that reported for other groups with lower technical proficiency. Whilst this may seem like a cut and dry case of more practise equals better future performance, there are a few points worth considering.

Firstly, how relevant is the developmental trajectory of violinists to athletes? Secondly, how accurately could you recall the amount of time spent performing a specific activity that took place over a decade ago? Thirdly, and very importantly, consider this: the authors of the violin study only reported the average number of hours that each group of musicians estimated that they had completed. This means that within the group of 10 musicians deemed the very best, half could have stated they completed 5000 hours while the other half may have said they completed 15,000 hours. This illustrates the need to critically analyse scientific research. Indeed, 20 years later Ericsson himself stated in a brief editorial in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, that: “given that this is my first opportunity to comment on the 10,000 hour rule - a term that I do not use in my own papers - it is important to point out the differences and inconsistencies with our research findings and the popular internet view.”

All of this is not to say that the concept of the performance schools is a bad one; however, national governing bodies and policy makers should be able to provide sound rationale as to why they feel a particular initiative is a good idea and ideally, produce evidence to back it up. Combining training within the traditional educational curriculum clearly provides athletes with a way of bolstering practise opportunities, however, does that come at a cost? Emerging evidence within the field of sport science is questioning the value of early sport specialisation. Proposed issues include increase risk of injury, greater psychological stress and increased likelihood of dropout for those who focus only on one sport from a young age. An oft-used analogy highlighting the concerns around early sport specialisation is that of limiting your child to studying one subject at school. I am confident that not one reader of this article would advocate that approach to academic education, at least until their child is old enough to have decided what they are interested in and what is likely to their career (traditionally at the age they attend University). As with scholarly pursuits, there is, perhaps, a better argument for starting with a broad exposure to as many different activities as is possible and gradually specialising based in propensity and enthusiasm.

Where did I say I was supposed to be looking?

Whether or not you agree with the concept of performance schools, the choice of where you send your son or daughter may well be out of your hands. It is the responsibility of clubs, their coaches and national governing bodies, through selection trials and scouting, to decide which players would benefit from being in such an environment. This is no easy task; I recently posed the question to a room full of academics of whether they could spot a potential PhD candidate at the age of 11? As you might imagine, few felt they could and yet this is precisely the challenge facing sport; identify athletes who have the potential to be world class in their chosen discipline at the age of 11 when they begin their secondary school education. It will come as no surprise to hear hat the relative age effect is still alive and well - that is, an over representation, compared to national averages, of players born in the early part of the selection year.

It would be easy to assume at this point that older players are bigger, stronger and faster than their younger counterparts and that it is their physical precocity that explains the over-representation. However, this may not necessarily be the case. Research that I conducted and published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that within youth footballers, those who are chronologically older may be biologically more mature however do not necessarily display superior physical qualities (a link to the research can be found here https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/FullText/2017/07000/Influence_of_Physical_Maturity_Status_on_Sprinting.6.aspx.) Clearly there is more work to be done in selecting the athletes likely to benefit from the extra training that performance schools provide, especially when the aim is to achieve an environment in which the best are able to compete against each other, years after their initial selection.

A question of ethics

The challenge of selecting players with potential is a by-product of the laudable ethical stance taken by the Scottish Football Association’s performance school programme, however it is not universal within the game. When players are selected into the SFA performance schools programme it is done on the premise that they will remain in the school until their education is complete (even if at a later age their talent is no longer reflective of that required to play at the highest level). Such an approach prioritises educational stability rather than a ‘win at all costs’ mentality. Furthermore, it affords young people the chance to develop over time rather than being subjected to the short-term thinking that is pervasive in the club environment where players are signed and released within the same season.

A similar model has been adopted by the Manchester City academy whereby players once selected are able to remain in the clubs school even if they are released from their playing contract. This is by no means common practise. There are clubs who offer educational places to children but only so long as they are deemed good enough to represent the club. Perhaps as practitioners determined to work with the best players we can understand this approach; however, as a parent I would not risk my children having to change schools half way through their secondary education because their club no longer felt they were good enough from a sporting perspective. What is apparent is that the notion of performance schools is an improvement on what was happening prior to their inception: young players identified as talented were allowed to take time off school to engage in additional training at their club. Whilst there was a requirement for clubs to assist players in ‘catching up’ with their educational committeemen’s, it is easy to see how for many young players the lure of training might have overtaken their desire to excel in the classroom.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

When the SFA performance schools programme was launched it was a bold and ambitious step to provide more opportunities for young players to access the type of coaching and training facilities that would facilitate their development towards the professional game. While there have been detractors, it is clear that the concept is one that appeals to decision-makers within the game who are responsible for developing young and talented individuals. A number of clubs have since followed their lead establishing their own performance schools where they receive on-campus training as a group. Whether there is greater value in schools that accommodate players from different clubs and that expose players to a variety of coaching styles rather than a more uniform model of training with your teammates remain to be seen.

We need a crystal ball

As with all initiatives and strategies designed to facilitate the development of young athletes , it is only in the fullness of time that we will be able to assess their effectiveness. This requires - and such a notion may not sit well with some - a robust, and dare I say scientific method to document the activities undertaken by the players and what additional benefit might exist over and above training only with their club. Such work is already being undertaken, however requires a national approach to understand whether the financial investment in developing such initiatives is worthwhile in the long term.

Some may point to the fact that developing young athletes is no longer a pre-requisite; there are examples of professional clubs who have abolished their youth academies. Most recently Falkirk have expressed concern over the viability and value of their own youth academy, before them it was Brentford, south of the border). More important, however, is the work required to ensure that young athletes, and their parents, do not prioritise a career in football that, statistically speaking, is unlikely to materialise, over an education that will open more diverse career opportunities. In light of recent evidence that opportunities for social mobility are decreasing, the need for education is more important than ever and should not be compromised irrespective of how passionate an athlete is about becoming the best in their sport.

This article was co-authored with Dr. Robert McCunn and first appeared in issue 7 of Nutmeg, the Scottish Football Periodical

Post script

Since this article was published I have completed a series of studies comparing the physical characteristics of players in Scottish performance schools to those at grass roots clubs and players in professional academies but not in performance schools. The studies, which formed part of a PhD conducted by Michael King under mine and Matt Weston’s supervision, were designed to answer some of the questions highlighted in this article; what is the benefit of the additional training players encounter at performance schools.

I won’t go into the detail of the data and associated analytics. What I will share, however, is the key take home message. Don’t be the best. The players who improved the most over the study period (3 years of data collection) were those who entered the system with the most potential for improvement. That is, compared to their peers, they were ranked lower in physical characteristics; they were slower, less agile and had poorer fitness levels. This is a key point. Environments developed to benefit the best players at each age group were more beneficial to the players who only just made the threshold for inclusion. The development of the better players did not appear to be any greater than that associated with athletes training and competing at the grass roots level, comparatively speaking.

For parents reading this, look for a programme in which your son or daughter is just good enough to get in. They will likely benefit more from this environment because they are surrounded by individuals who they can learn from and improve by competing against on a daily basis. If your child is the best in the group, find another group. This may be easier said than done; where do the best athletes go to find competition that pushes them to improve if it isn’t available in their local area or club? The answer is probably that you need to travel. There are examples of this across different sports; Lionel Messi moved to Barcelona at the age of 14. Andrew Murray the Scottish tennis player moved to Spain at a young age whilst many Rugby players in the Pacific Islands move to Australia to pursue their careers. These examples show the importance of being willing (and able) to move to find the best environment where you aren’t the best in the group, or at least, the gap between the best and the worst players are as small as possible.