More than 150 students from partner colleges attended the exclusive day, offering them advice on coaching development and the different career opportunities available in football coaching.

The colleges that attended are all part of the Accredited Online Course Provider (AOCP) Scheme. In the last year FA Learning has been working with a number of FE colleges to integrate the online courses into their education programmes.

The online courses provide a fun and informative platform to develop learning within areas such as psychology, fitness, laws of the game and match analysis. There are many advantages to the scheme, including educational resources, access to the online courses and exclusive opportunities to attend events such as these.

Many of the students who attended the day had already completed their 1st4sport Level 1 Certificate in Coaching Football. For many of them, the day helped to outline the coaching pathway and the different jobs available to those with this qualification.

For a Level 1 Coach for example, they may wish to work as a voluntary coach, part-time youth leader, at a play scheme, with football in the community or at a soccer camp. These are all great opportunities to assist students with building their football CV's, helping them to gain valuable experience of working with a team, allowing them to progress towards their Level 2.

Jamie Houchen, National Tutor Training Manager, outlined the Coaching Pathway in his lively and interactive presentation, giving the students the chance to think about what it means to be a good coach.

Les Howie, National Development Manager at The FA talked about coaching opportunities in the US and how to go about finding these. He outlined his personal experience of working at a soccer camp and how this that helped to lay the foundations of his work within grassroots football today.

Guest speakers also included John Shiels from Man United Soccer Schools, Geoff Noonan from Fulham Academy and Andrew Broadbent from Elite Soccer. An underlying theme of commitment and determination to succeed underpinned many of the presentations providing an inspirational take home message for all the students.

For many of the students, the highlight of the day was the chance to work on some practical sessions on a full sized stadium pitch. FA Regional Coaches Andy Poole and Paul Holder led a series of 20 minutes sessions on goalkeeping techniques and progression from Level 1 games.

Chris Welburn, Leeds United Fitness Coach, delivered a session on strength, agility and quickness, outlining the fundamental fitness elements of any good coach and how to get the best from your team using these practices.

As some light relief, the students took a few free kicks and had a session of soccer tennis using specialist training equipment designed by the company, ‘Soccer Buddy’.

Feedback from the colleges has been excellent and The FA hope to run similar events to these in 2007 outlining the different opportunities available in coaching.

If you are part of a college and think you would be interested in this scheme, please email OnlinecourseQuery@TheFA.com or go to The FA Learning page, located here, to find out about more events like these.