As a coach working in a football academy, you are expected to deliver high-quality sessions, support player learning, and continually develop your own practice, often with limited time. The Football Coach Development we provide is designed to offer bespoke support, grounded in evidence to fit around the players’ development.
We work with: professional football academies in the EPPP framework, governing bodies and regional associations, and coaches and heads of coach development who want to better understand their own coach behaviour, improve how they design and deliver sessions, and gain clear insight into the learning environments they create. Our work is fully tailored to the individual coach and/or academy; if you are seeking structured, accountable, and evidence-based coach development, our Football Coach Development is for you.
Tailored support for impactful coach development
Delivered in partnership with Edge Hill University, Football Coach Development provides a research-informed development experience that can combine:
- comprehensive coach behaviour and practice design review
- objective data and video analysis
- individualised coach development plans
- CPD workshops delivered by experts from Edge Hill University
- ongoing one-to-one coach support
- season-end impact and benchmarking reports.
You will receive evidence-based feedback for your individual coaches or for the academy to improve coaching practice. We will provide ongoing guidance to help you make meaningful, sustainable improvements to your player development.
How it works
We can offer you a free 30-minute initial diagnostic to establish your coach development needs. Through this conversation, Mark will begin to understand your challenges and how he can potentially support you.
The Football Coach Development Programme gives you a complete coach development package that fits your organisation’s needs. Here’s how:
- Review of coaching practice: The first step is to identify what your coaching workforce needs to support player development. We will do this through a needs analysis, and if available, a review of previous data/evidence.
- Tailored individual coach support: We will develop an action plan based on your needs analysis. Your action plan is bespoke to your individual coaches’ needs. We will offer practical learning and personalised guidance that will make a real impact.
- Bespoke CPD: We will design and deliver evidence-informed CPD workshops (e.g., Supporting our players’ learning and development).
- End-of-season impact review: Through this, we will measure progress and see the real difference our research-backed development has made. We will also look at what else we can offer and any ongoing support you may need for the next season.
We can tailor the package to your needs. For example, if you would like just CPD workshop(s) to accompany the learning support your Head of Coach Development is already undertaking, we can provide this too.
Workshop packages
Mark has a menu of CPD workshops that have been developed to increase the effectiveness and impact of coaching delivery. These are:
Expertise in partnership
The Football Coach Development is led by:
Dr Mark Partington. BSc (hons), MSc, P.G.C.E., PhD, SFHEA.
- Senior Lecturer in Sport Coaching who researches in Coach Behaviour, Coaching Practice and Coach Learning. Master’s and PhD in Sport Coaching.
- An English Football Association Casual Coach Developer. Have delivered on the FA Advanced Youth Award.
- Experience in Academy Football as a Coach across FP, YDP and PDP and as the Head of Research and Coach Support.
- UEFA A License and Youth Award Coach.
Mark Partington is a Senior Lecturer in Sports Coaching at Edge Hill University. He coordinates and teaches several modules that include pedagogy, sociological thinking, coach learning and practical knowledge in sports coaching. His research interests include coach behaviours and practices, philosophy for sports coaching, coach development and coach learning. Mark has professionally coached in participation, development, and performance sports and supports coach development in various contexts. He is a practising UEFA A licensed coach working at an English youth football academy, is a lead for Research and Coach Support, and is a Coach Developer for the English Football Association, delivering UEFA C and UEFA B coaching awards.
Our Football Coach Development work is already making impact. Dr Mark Partington has worked closely with a number of football academies. In partnership with Wigan Athletic, the Coach Support Package implemented demonstrated measurable improvements in coach behaviour, practice design, and coach reflection through the use of objective data, video analysis, and personalised support.
Read about the impact