The Soccer Coach’s Toolkit – all 563 pages! – is out now!
Author, Rob Ellis joins us today to tell us how his debut book, The Soccer Coach’s Toolkit came about.
Congratulations on publication, Rob – and welcome!
I wrote “The Soccer Coach’s Toolkit” over a seven year span starting in 2014. The desire to write a coaching book had been with me for a long time. I have always been a detailed football session planner since I started coaching in 1997. I used to have bits of paper with session activities written on them all over my house – often as I couldn’t find the piece of paper I was looking for! Much to my frustration I would find myself re-writing the same activity out over and over again.
I wanted to get all of my coaching ideas in one place and so I started to go through the pieces of paper and type them up onto one document. I realised how much time I was saving for myself once I knew where to look to find my ideas. Pretty soon after this, I got the idea to turn my ideas into a coaching book. I was determined to get every idea from each piece of paper onto one document. I really enjoyed compiling all of the ideas and gradually I added a structure to the document.
I started to put the ideas into sections based on technique and then I added organisational and coaching points as well as details about equipment, coaching adaptations and level of difficulty. I wanted the book to give as much practical help as possible to coaches so that they could read my book and pick out coaching activities that are clear, easy to understand and certain to work well out on the training pitch. I feel that the book is very practical and will give coaches a lot of confidence as they plan and prepare sessions.
I have always loved football since I was a child. I played professional and semi-professional football up to my early 30s. Since then, I have spent more time coaching and I still love the game as much as ever. Coaching football should be fun and I wanted my book to take the stress out of preparing football sessions. I feel that any coach that buys my book will find a wealth of excellent coaching activities for every technique and fresh ideas on tactical and team-play coaching.
I edited the book so many times as I wanted every detail to be clear and I am sure that each activity is described in a way that all coaches can relate to and understand very quickly. I was incredibly lucky that my fiancee is an illustrator and she managed to design the fantastic graphics for the book. I hope they add detail and clarity to each activity.
I feel very proud that Meyer and Meyer have published my book as they are a huge name in sports book publishing. I remember them well from my University days and so it is great to be part of their team of authors. Writing the book has made me want to write more and use my expertise to offer ideas on different aspects of football coaching and football in general.
I hope you enjoy “The Soccer Coach’s Toolkit”
We are very proud too Rob – that you signed with us! We are delighted to be publishing The Soccer Coach’s Toolkit – available through all good book shops and online retailers now!