The fourth Surrey Football Coaches Association (SFCA) session of the season was held at Fulham FC’s academy on Monday.

The evening was lead by FA regional coach development manager Ben Bartlett, who delivered a classroom presentation on “understanding club coaching philosophy”.

Attended by 130 people, there were also coaching demonstrations support for charter standard club development, a speech on how to build an environment where the players are most important, classroom activities, and a session on coaching children.

The event included an insight into the coaching pathways available, (especially level 1 and 2 and the FA Youth Award modules), with the aim of delivering support, advice & incentive for where to go next as a coach.

The session was also open to non-coaches and officials at football clubs as the evening aimed to give those who are interested in player (and coach) development within their club the support, advice & incentive for taking it forward.

The event was supported by Surrey County FA, who provide the football development team as a help to clubs and coaches with their development. They were in attendance and very pleased with the turn out.

“It was great to see so many coaches from across the County and further a field attend the evening”, said Surrey County FA Coach Education Officer, Craig Hicks.

Craig added, “The Surrey County FA and Surrey Coaches Association have a passion to support, develop and provide sessions like this evening’s to grass roots coaches.”

The event was also supported by Fulham FC, who has a Club Coaching Philosophy and shared their knowledge on the night.

Fulham provided their indoor 3G Astroturf to the event and even provided one of their academy teams for the practical element of the occasion.

Ben Singh, a local coach for Sutton O’Neills FC and first time attendee, said ”We have found this to be a very good starting point for how we are going to go forward with our own team.

“We are now looking at our own players’ strengths and weaknesses and looking at building up an idea of areas we can improve and how best to go about improving our team from the principles we looked at in Ben's session “The pace and balance of the presentation mixed with the practical session at a high class facility such as Motspur Park made the session as interesting for someone new to coaching (like myself) as well as those with higher levels of experience.”

To become a member of the Surrey Football Coaches Association contact membership secretary Ian Smith at ian.smith@umusic.com For any other details contact Craig Hicks on 01372 387092 or email craig.hicks@surreyfa.com