July 2005
FA Learning Online Courses

Graduate coach Roger Blackwell talks about his experiences on The FA Learning Online Courses. 


The FA’s online coaching courses have been credited for helping Queens Park Rangers recruit a new local talent scout.

Roger Blackmore has two of The FA’s online courses under his belt already and his commitment to increasing his knowledge of the game paid dividends recently when he successfully applied for the position with the Championship outfit.

Roger, from High Wycombe, is the vice-chairman of local club Flackwell Heath Minors, where he manages and coaches two Under-11 sides in the South Bucks Minor League, and his new role for QPR will take in the Wycombe, Aylesbury and Amersham area.

Having already taken his FA coaching courses at Levels 1, 2 and 3, Roger completed FA Learning’s first online qualification – Psychology for Soccer.

He then returned online to take the Fitness in Football course and was last week presented with his certificate by Sir Trevor Brooking, The FA’s Director of Football Development.

“I think it’s a fantastic way for coaches at grassroots level to learn at their own pace,” said Roger. “In the modern world a lot of people are pushed for time and find it very difficult to actually attend a course.

“Working online, if you’ve got half an hour here, or an hour there you can dip in and out of it over a six-month period and become a very improved coach.”

Roger believes his formal qualifications may have helped him secure his new role in helping to unearth talented young candidates for QPR’s Centre of Excellence.

“The key thing for me is learning and increasing my knowledge of the game rather than getting a certificate, but the online psychology course was on my CV when I applied for the QPR job and it can’t have done any harm,” he said.

“Qualifications demonstrate that people are interested in learning, and improving their knowledge and experience, which has to be a good thing.”

“These online courses can reinforce what you have learned previously,” he said. “For example, the psychology course brought home the fact that children as individuals learn in different ways.”

But it doesn’t stop there for the ambitious coach as he eyes his next courses: “I’ve already covered areas such as child protection, but I think the Match Analysis course would probably be very useful to me along with two or three of the others.”

Find out more about the online courses available with FA Learning. Click here..