learning your trade
England Women's U20 head coach, Mo Marley, talks to The Boot Room about her journey into international coaching and offers advice for aspiring female coaches.
What was your journey into coaching?
I actually got involved in coaching whilst I was still a player. Throughout my playing career I’d never really had anybody coach me.
Fortunately enough I was selected to play for England late in my career - I was picked at 28 coming up to 29. However, I struggled going into an elite coaching environment.
I made the decision to complete the coaching courses to help me with my playing career. The decision to get into coaching had more to do with extending my playing career than anything else.
It was more to make me a better player and to help me understand and cope with the demands of the international coaching environment.
How did the coaching courses help you as a player?
When I went on the courses it actually refined some of my individual technical skills. I was never a master technician, it was never a strength of my game. But I actually developed my technique later on in my career.
Obviously, the courses also gave me an appreciation and understanding of coaching methods and practices. The courses helped me understand the international environment and I just progressed from there.
As my playing career was coming to an end it was clear to me that I wanted to be able to pass on what I had learned about the game. I was keen then to share my experiences to ensure that I could put back into the game in some shape or form.
I had opportunities at an early stage to be exposed to lots of different coaches, players and environments and learned to apply different approaches at the relevant opportunities
How did you make the step from playing to coaching?
Whilst still playing and completing my coaching courses I was fortunate enough to be employed as a Women and Girls Development Officer. I was fortunate that through this programme I was exposed to a lot of coaching experiences in a short space of time.
I was coaching at the football and education academy at Liverpool County FA, as well delivering a lot of the County FA Women and Girls programme.
So I had a vast range of experiences from delivering basic after school classes to setting up junior clubs and working at the academy.
I had opportunities at an early stage to be exposed to lots of different coaches, players and environments and learned to apply different approaches at the relevant opportunities. It all progressed from there.
How did your experience coaching in the grassroots game help your future career?
Being exposed to a vast range of players all of different abilities and ages meant I could trial lots of different approaches.
Alongside the coaching programmes, I was also a Centre Director for the Everton Ladies Centre of Excellence. I was pretty much coaching seven days a week and as often as I wanted.
By coaching in a variety of settings I was able to see what was needed to make the transition from grassroots to club standard and then to gifted and talented. It helped me develop a wider outlook.
I was able to start to predict what the players needed to make the step up because I knew what was required at the next level.
How has your continued professional development changed throughout your career?
Attending the relevant FA courses has been crucial. Exposure to major European and international competition in different environments has also been extremely important.
Working with other elite coaches has also helped. The development pathway afforded by the initial women and girls mentoring programme that Hope Powell and Brent Hills originally developed has also been hugely significant.
During my time in the mentoring programme we were very fortunate to work with multiple sports. We were working with elite players and coaches from women’s rugby, cricket and other sports. We all worked together to share best practice.
We had an opportunity to input into the course design depending on what our needs were – it wasn’t a scripted programme. We may have needed communication skills, a better understanding of analysis or extra work on physiology, whatever it was the group directed the programme.
Crucially we had experts delivering each element of the programme. That exposure was massively beneficial in my early learning phase.
I have also learned a lot from coaches working in the Liverpool area where there are some very, very good coaches. Watching and listening to these people can help you a lot. I have learned a lot of my trade for international football from the exposures that I have had via Everton Centre of Excellence and Everton Ladies.
The quality of your learning phases are based on how you go about getting what you need at that particular time. You’ve got to explore different avenues for learning all of the time.
There comes a point where you do have to go out there and lead. You have to embed your principles and develop that presence about you
What's your advice for women who want to follow a career in coaching?
If I’m honest at first I didn’t really want to go out onto the field and coach. I didn’t have the confidence and back then I was quite shy.
So at the beginning of my career I watched as many other coaches as I could, exploring different coaching methods, finding different things out and observing – that was the key part for me. When I did get out onto the pitch I had a little bit more knowledge and a little bit more experience. You have got to find what is right for you, how you learn and the best way to do that and stick with that.
I have gone on record in the past as saying, I probably would have observed for ten years if I was allowed to. But there comes a point where you do have to go out there and lead. You have to embed your principles and develop that presence about you.
Hope Powell was one of my key mentors and in a positive way she pushed me and gave me the confidence to do it. I had observed for years and observed the best people possible – but there comes a point where you have to be prepared to fail and go out there to gain experience, learn and be challenged.