TWO "RIGHT CHARLIES"

[john68]

Several points have been been raised by the likes of Ted, Lev and others about the paucity of skill of England/English players and England/English teams over the Euro's. I thought the subject was too important to be left to scattered post over a number of threads.

Lev,
Check out the work of CHARLES REEP Mate. He was the 1950s statistician who ANALysed football and was the real "father of the long ball game" that has blighted and stunted the development of English players and football since it was taken on board and developed by the other "Right Charlie" CHARLES HUGHES. Hughes picked up Reep's theories and developed them even further.

Hughes was the FA's Director of Football Coaching in the 1990s and wrote the coaching manual that taught football coaches what to teach. Thousands of well meaning and time giving football enthusiasts took their coaching badges to help kids play the game and were taught SHITE....and that "well meaning shite (almost anti football) was taught to kids. Since the 1990s, this country has spawned 100,000s of youngsters who became experts at lumping and chasing the ball into channels and P.O.M.O. (remember that lunacy) positions.

It was ideal for any youth coach who wanted to help kids but had limited tactical knowledge. It also heavily influenced the game at the top end with the likes of Alladyce, Beck, Taylor, Pullis and.....ROY HODGSON. It gave limited success to a number of teams and even helped the likes of Norway, Sweden and as NQPD posted, Finland. It gave rise to the theory that clubs are better recruiting big, strong, athletic kids who could be taught football, rather than smaller more naturally gifted kids who couldn't be made bigger.

[ronk]

and Ireland under Jack Charlton.

[Lev Bronstein]

If I remember, the methods of Hughes were much talked about when Graham Taylor took over. The idea being this was the English way and English players were comfortable playing this way, so this would get the best out of them.

In a way, I've no problem with teams playing that long ball style. I don't like it myself, but if Stoke, Bolton or Wimbledon want to play that way then good luck to them. One of the attractions of football is that it is basically a simple game that can be played in a variety of ways.

The other virtue of the Hughes method seems to be that you can get better results with limited players. The problem seems to be, however, is that this approach is the cause of the limitations of the English game.

It's funny how it became so popular. I don't remember City under Allison and Mercer, Spurs under Nicholson, you know who under Busby, west Ham under Greenwood, Liverpool under Shankley and Paisley etc. ever playing that style. And they were successful enough between them.

In fact, if my memory serves me right (and no I'm not that old), Spurs under Rowley (I think) were known as pioneers of the "push and run" style. In other words short passes with players moving into space.

Whenever I read about 1950's football, the battering that England received from the Hungarians sent a shock through the English game. Some coaches, realising that the game had moved on, tried to learn from them - after all the Revie plan was supposed to be a variation of what the Hungarians were doing.

It seems that "the establishment" reacted differently. Pouring scorn on "fancy foreign ways" and becoming even more insular and dogmatic as a result.

It isn't so much about formations, they have changed over the years, it's the rigididity of it all that's so frustrating. Take last night, who was supposed to be looking after Pirlo? Do you think that Bobby wouldn't have told someone to sit on him? In fact I'm pretty sure that Fulham, West Brom or Liverpool under Hodgeson would have done something to nullify him - why not England?

[john68]

There were THREE main areas of the Charlies.
The P.O.M.O. position..."POSITIONS OF MAXIMUM OPPORTUNITY" those places on the pitch where most goals were scored from. If players occupied thosepositions, they would therefore score more.
The CHANNELS...Those areas of the pitch where the ball should be played to cause most damage/
...and the (now discredited) theory that most goals were scored after three passes.

You are right about the rigidity Lev.

There was also the theory (also discredited) that if English players/teams were fitter they would reap the benefits. This led to an all out assault on maximum fitness levels in Britain, which to a significant extent, took the focus off the ball and ball play. It was later found that players like the Dutch who concentrated on ball play, were not significantly more unfit than English players, despite our focus on it.

Many English ball players, although feted now, were ignored or considered lazy because they failed to run around a lot. Hoddle was considered a luxury, Gazza a nutter and how many caps did the likes of Bowles, Marsh, Curry et al get, commensurate with their skill levels?

[Ted Hughes]

They mentioned on Talkshite how a lad who plays non-league tweeted that when Glen Johnson had time on the ball, he would be fighting with the voices of 100 youth coaches in his head shouting 'knock it down the channel".

These people have infected the English game & there is an attempt by the FA now, to purge them from the game by training loads of new coaches in the methods of proper football. It will take time but if there is enough of a concerted effort & the public are behind it, then eventually it may just work. Our (City's) academy efforts will be a big influence in the future I recon.

I think the football public is now starting to realise that England's football is shite & wrong & that there is a better way of doing it & that it's not just down to managers selections etc; something else is going wrong.

A similar thing happened in cricket; you had the old school on one side, the radical nutcases on the other & the blame for England being shit going on pitches bein covered or not hard enough or too green, the ball, overseas players all kinds of nonsense. When it was finally aknowledged that England were shit & that other teams were coaching players to do it right, we set in motion the plans (against much gnashing of teeth from Yorkshire, Lancashire, disgusted Tumbridge Wells, Colonel Blimp etc) that we were going to do it right ourselves & (with the help of a couple of 'English' South Africans) we now do it pretty much right & we have top quality players queueing up to get in the team. It took time, but nowhere near as long as I expected. A few years knocking the academy into shape & we were half way there without many of us even knowing it.

I remember Rod Marsh in charge of the academy saying we'd be looking to beat the Aussies at first class level a few years later. It was the equivalent of saying the football team would win the World Cup in Brazil. The commentators were almost laughing at him.

We proceeded to beat Australia who, imo, were 50% better as a cricket team than Spain are as a football team. a truly great side in every aspect of the game.

Now, we may not be No 1 every year but we will compete with the best teams for that spot probably forever, because we do it right.

[Ted Hughes]

[youtube]ok8g0AirhRA[/youtube]

At 2:30, the great man himself talking about another bright idea for fucking up English football even further.

Even Swales starts to get danger signals. Hughes mentions there that it had taken him 30 years to fuck it up to that extent.

[sheikh it all about]

We often hear Trevor Brooking's name mentioned as if he were a messiah. Does he (or anyone else) actually do anything to improve grass roots football?

There are so many posts saying if only such-and-such a player had been selected or the formation altered slightly. Wouldn't have made a fucl of a difference. We just haven't got enough technically gifted footballers coming through and so the likes of Downing, Young, Henderson, Parker, Caroll & co get in by default. And Hodgson and Redknapp are the best we have to offer as home-grown England managers.

Surely there has to be a root-and-branch review.

[getdressedmctavish]

Think some of you are drawing the wrong conclusions. We came out of the Hughes era 15 years ago when Venables was manager.In the Euros we barely used Caroll.In my view we would have got more joy out of him than Welbeck because the latter thrives in a quick passing team which we are not. Our problem which Hodgson did well to overcome is that our two central midfield players were half fit, Milner lacks confidence and composure on the ball, Young visibly shrank and Wooney allowed himself to be half fit the fat coont.We tried to play football but lacked the finess and stamina to do it. We might have been better knocking it long to the big fella for all the contribution our other strikers made. Trying to play possession football, we repeatedly gave it away short, before we'd made any progress up the pitch. By the end we were camped in our own final third.A fit Wiltshire would have made a big difference, as would Scholes.The players aren't there but its not the coaching thats wrong these days.

[aaron bond]

A grass-roots upheaval is urgently required. One of the main causes is that in England, kids start playing on full-sized 11-a-side pitches at such a young age. I'm 27 now, but remember starting to play on them when I was 9! I think it has been raised now to 10. The pitches are so big it means each kid gets less time on the ball so their touch and control doesn't develop as well as it could, and kids are more likely to go for a longer pass to get the ball up the pitch more quickly.

I know recently they've been trying to change that by bringing in reforms starting in the next couple of years that will see kids playing 7-a-side for longer, before moving to 9-a-side on a smaller pitch before finally starting 11-a-side at about the age of 13. This will should help kids to pass the ball more and develop better ball control skills, as is the case in other countries such as Holland and Spain.

This is the right way to go. It will take about 10 years to see the full benefits of this though so you just have to hope the FA, media and public will give it time.

[Ted Hughes]

Think some of you are drawing the wrong conclusions. We came out of the Hughes era 15 years ago when Venables was manager.In the Euros we barely used Caroll.In my view we would have got more joy out of him than Welbeck because the latter thrives in a quick passing team which we are not. Our problem which Hodgson did well to overcome is that our two central midfield players were half fit, Milner lacks confidence and composure on the ball, Young visibly shrank and Wooney allowed himself to be half fit the fat coont.We tried to play football but lacked the finess and stamina to do it. We might have been better knocking it long to the big fella for all the contribution our other strikers made. Trying to play possession football, we repeatedly gave it away short, before we'd made any progress up the pitch. By the end we were camped in our own final third.A fit Wiltshire would have made a big difference, as would Scholes.The players aren't there but its not the coaching thats wrong these days.

There are still literally thousands of shit coaches knocking around & an old boys nework of talentless individuals which needs removing. There are still loads of kids being taught to hoof the ball to the big lad & plenty playing on pitches which are too big. It has been improving but there is still a long way to go. My mate's lad has just been through it at a host of clubs, some of them top ones & a lot of it's still horrific.

Players like Gerrard, Beckham, etc should have been able to take over a game & control it like Pirlo did but they can't because it's not natural to them. The only bloke who learned to do it is Scholes but he's only learned how to do that in later years more or less off his own bat. It's not time to get blase about it now. In ten years when kids are coming through who are comfortable & confident on the ball, then we can say it's worked.

[Slim]

There were THREE main areas of the Charlies.
The P.O.M.O. position..."POSITIONS OF MAXIMUM OPPORTUNITY" those places on the pitch where most goals were scored from. If players occupied thosepositions, they would therefore score more.
The CHANNELS...Those areas of the pitch where the ball should be played to cause most damage/
...and the (now discredited) theory that most goals were scored after three passes.

You are right about the rigidity Lev.

There was also the theory (also discredited) that if English players/teams were fitter they would reap the benefits. This led to an all out assault on maximum fitness levels in Britain, which to a significant extent, took the focus off the ball and ball play. It was later found that players like the Dutch who concentrated on ball play, were not significantly more unfit than English players, despite our focus on it.

Many English ball players, although feted now, were ignored or considered lazy because they failed to run around a lot. Hoddle was considered a luxury, Gazza a nutter and how many caps did the likes of Bowles, Marsh, Curry et al get, commensurate with their skill levels?

I noticed you put POMO in your first post and then failed to state what it was. My only thought was that you were waiting for someone to ask and when no-one did, you couldn't help yourself but explain an answer to a question never asked. You really are trying to hard to come off as the guru of football aren't you?

[john68]

Hahahahahaha....No Slim Mate....I was thinking so much about how to phrase the post, I simply forgot to expand it.
Sadly (for me)...more alzheimer than guru....Though on rechecking, maybe just laziness....:-)
But well spotted.

Note to self....Slim is back...must pay more attention.

[Slim]

Hahahahahaha....No Slim Mate....I was thinking so much about how to phrase the post, I simply forgot to expand it.
Sadly (for me)...more alzheimer than guru....Though on rechecking, maybe just laziness....:-)
But well spotted.

Note to self....Slim is back...must pay more attention.

The problem with POMO was it was too simplistic to begin with and easy to counter, too bad they didn't take it further.

Sabermetrics anyone?

[dick dastardley]

[youtube]ok8g0AirhRA[/youtube]

At 2:30, the great man himself talking about another bright idea for fucking up English football even further.

Even Swales starts to get danger signals. Hughes mentions there that it had taken him 30 years to fuck it up to that extent.

fuck me i thought mike bassett was gonna walk in and start ranting, load of old cronies making a pretty penny who aint got a fuckin clue!!!

[Niall Quinns Discopants]

It's funny but because English football has always been so huge here, your training methods were also looked up (despite the fact that England never won anything). So basically long balls, overly physical football, sticking to positions that you were assigned for as a nipper throughout your development, playing it to channels and all that shit is just so familiar to me. That is EXACTLY how we were thought as a kids.

Whole "most goals are scored in three passes or less" was the mantra we had when I was about 14 or 15. Playing as a central midfielder the biggest sin possible was to pass it sideways or, god forbid (you'd probably get substituted for this), backwards. Once you picked up the ball next move was to either boot it behind fullback for winger, boot it behind/between central defenders for striker or just shoot. Football like that was never going to improve anyone's personal skill level. We've always produced centerbacks who are excellent in the air though.

And then there was the endless cross country running. The point was that if you couldn't walk after the run you had improved your fitness. Which of course is completely wrong way to try and improve stamina.

I've read quite alot about the way Ajax system works. They don't have assigned positions until well into their teens. They just play everywhere regardless of their size to learn to understand the game from different perspectives. Coaches don't concentrate on individual results on youth football but rather how each of them performed individually and team regardless of outcome. This would've been complete unheard of when I was playing. The aim was to win no matter what and if we did, even playing shit, job well done and if we didn't we had some extra runs as a punishment. You'd also get those punishment runs if you made some individual mistakes. Not very encouraging to try something new.

Again, kids in Ajax academy are encouraged to try different sports in side. Gymnastics and wrestling are the most common as they improve your cordination. They don't do any weights or cross country running or any of that shit. Their point is that children are naturally fit and therefore don't really need to improve their fitness like adults. One touch football is naturally encouraged and sometimes you lose the ball but hey, that's part of the learning process. Same for taking on opposition players. I was used to thought going into one-on-one situations that "either you take the ball or you take the man down". I'm pretty sure you don't hear Dutch coaches saying teaching shit like that to twelve years olds.

I just all seems so sad now because I saw lot of naturally really talented lads quit playing because it wasn't really that much fun and in certain stage of their physical development they weren't suitable for roles in offer in this dogmatic type of football. I myself quite enjoyed and was good at this blood and grit type of football but despite having amazing natural determination on football pitch I was never one of the naturally most gifted. And those are the types that have the chance to turn into fantastic players.

[Wonderwall]

Grass roots youth football is changing and brooking is heavily involved in doing this.

U10 and lower ages are now only 7 a side. Next season for the first time u11 & u12 are 9 a side after being trialled with the u11s for a few seasons. The big problem is pitch sizes, goals and markings for the 9 a side as there are not enough. A trial of inflatable goals is underway and are really good but the quality does not last and its expensive to keep repairing and replacing them.

Brooking has been to my youth club many times and is very passionate about changing how we are at grass roots. Having seen how he is first hand, i completely disagree with any negative press. Rome wasnt built in a day.

[Alex Sapphire]

It's funny but because English football has always been so huge here, your training methods were also looked up (despite the fact that England never won anything). ...

I'll stop you there

[Niall Quinns Discopants]

It's funny but because English football has always been so huge here, your training methods were also looked up (despite the fact that England never won anything). ...

I'll stop you there

Look, I was born 1978. Started playing organised football around 1984. That was good 18 years after England won the World Cup. That fantastic Dutch side of the 70's might've been more up to date at the time.

[Alex Sapphire]

It's funny but because English football has always been so huge here, your training methods were also looked up (despite the fact that England never won anything). ...

I'll stop you there

Look, I was born 1978. Started playing organised football around 1984. That was good 18 years after England won the World Cup. That fantastic Dutch side of the 70's might've been more up to date at the time.

History doesn't start with your personal experience :)
I have a "thing" about the "New Pre-history" being created by t'internet. If it can't be found with google it never happened.
Well take it from me "England did win summat".

Anyhoo, the England squad of 1984 that must have been a big influence on you included:
Chris Waddle, Glenn Hoddle,Trevor Francis,John Barnes

and they did this to Brazil:

[youtube]9SCyXGiJ-jc[/youtube]
Not sure where this idea that I've been watching England hoofing the ball upfield for 40 years comes from.

[Ted Hughes]

It's funny but because English football has always been so huge here, your training methods were also looked up (despite the fact that England never won anything). ...

I'll stop you there

Look, I was born 1978. Started playing organised football around 1984. That was good 18 years after England won the World Cup. That fantastic Dutch side of the 70's might've been more up to date at the time.

History doesn't start with your personal experience :)
I have a "thing" about the "New Pre-history" being created by t'internet. If it can't be found with google it never happened.
Well take it from me "England did win summat".

Anyhoo, the England squad of 1984 that must have been a big influence on you included:
Chris Waddle, Glenn Hoddle,Trevor Francis,John Barnes

and they did this to Brazil:

[youtube]9SCyXGiJ-jc[/youtube]
Not sure where this idea that I've been watching England hoofing the ball upfield for 40 years comes from.

They did actually hoof it up before Barnes got it. And he was another classic example of a player with good technique who couldn't tie his own shoelaces for England.

Those Brazilian defenders look just like the ones you see in Brazil today btw. Spectators.