Hi everyone, this is Dave Wright and welcome to the Play Development Project podcast. I hope you're all having a top week working with your players, wherever you're listening. In the last week, we've published a great blog by New contributor Ruth Nicholson on the Secrets of Successful Clubs and a new Q&A on effective communication, a really nice topic for conversation which if you listen to it, hopefully generated a few ideas in your coaching practice. Both pieces of content are available on the website now.
Today, I am thrilled to bring you our latest Masterclass discussion. The full 65 minute video is available now on the website and it features one of the best coaches I had the pleasure of working with during my time in England, former Fulham Academy and Lead Foundation phase coach Arthur Bremmer. Arthur is now working at New York City Football Club Academy. He's a top coach and a real expert in developing youth players.
He's worked with a huge number of highly successful players and as well as his five years at Fulham, he spent another five at Watford. As well as sharing insights into the clubs he's worked at, we'll dive into a portion of the Masterclass where Arthur shares his background, his coaching journey and personal development, how to play in sessions and how to develop individuals as well as the value of a player team's approach plus much more. Finally, don't forget if you haven't signed up to become a member, we have highly affordable monthly or annual membership options available at playdevelopmentproject.com so you can sign up and access all of our top coaching content, including the full version of this conversation. I hope you enjoy the discussion.
Hi everyone, my name is Dave Wright and welcome to another PDP Masterclass discussion. I'm really pleased to be joined by Arthur Bremmer, a former colleague of mine from Fulham Football Club and a very experienced academy coach in both the UK and the US. Arthur, how are you? I'm very good Dave, thank you for having me.
Pleasure to have you on, but looking forward to this one for a while, it's great to catch up and I'm really looking forward to sharing some of your experience with the PDP community. So, Arthur, kick things off, let's start a little bit with your background. Now, you've had experiences in academy player and you've worked in a number of clubs, you've worked across different countries and had a lot of very interesting experiences. Can you talk a little bit about your experience both as a player and a coach?
Yeah, I'm from Sheffield. I was at Sheffield Wednesday academy and then at Chesterfield, a sense of excellence. As a young player, I went to university, studied sport science and then I went and started coaching in America and started my coaching journey on some country, the company called Eurotech, when I was 20 and that got me back into the game after being released from Chesterfield and not getting my scholar, re-igniting my love football again and I went and did my PGC and became a P teacher and moved down to London and in my first role I was lucky enough to get a job at Watford as a part-time UNI coach, working with Dave Godley and the Cox there and I was a fantastic experience, I worked through the ages at Watford, I then moved away and I went to teach in Chile for a year as a P teacher in Santiago and came back and was lucky enough to get a job at Fulham Academy, taking the U12s in 2010 and I was doing that while I was teaching at Delwich College as a head of football there and as a P teacher, worked both jobs for four years and then in 2016 became the lead foundation phase coach at Fulham and then did that for two years and then out of the blue my partner got offered a job in New York so we decided to make the leap to New York just about 14, 15 months ago now and been working at New York City FC for this season so yes, we've been a lot of work. Fascinating journey and I guess testament to your hard graft, I remember when we first met you were still doing both of those jobs and you were flat out and it was real testament.
Just on your history a little bit, can you share some insights and sort of value of those overseas experiences, whether that was your time in Chile or whether that was your first experience in the States? In contrast between cultures, how has that benefited you as a coach? I think for me the thing I took from America was really nice in my love of the game again, I haven't been released as a player, not made it as a player, that was a big turn point in my life and maybe wanted to dedicate myself to my life to coaching and being a football coach and a teacher. And so just a real passion for the game that I felt from America, I would always be grateful for those experiences.
Chile was a fantastic experience as well learning the game from a different perspective and also learning a foreign language and trying to put myself in the shoes of someone speaking a foreign language and not being at home was a really big learning curve for me, I was 27 and that year really, I really grew up in that year. So yeah, it was an interesting time, it was when it was a Chile coach, they played some fantastic football at the time and it was fascinating to watch a young Sanchez and go into see just the passion for the game in South America. Yeah, it was a great experience. Fantastic stuff.
During those formative coaching years, whether it was in the States or back at Watford perhaps in the UK, who were some of your key mentors and why did they make an impact on you? Yeah, I had a lot and I probably missed out a few. I think probably from my teaching background, I was a teacher for 10 years. Big influence on me was Spencer Leach, who coached at Fulham the way he broke down the game and his calmness with the players was fantastic.
He's now head of Swore to B-Dell School. Craig Lawrence, who I did, he's now an FA tutor, his passion for learning. I did my teacher training with him was fantastic and I spent five years at Dollege College, which is a pre-graduate school, one national championships and then the motto of the rugby coach at the time, which is do the best. And so learning just that attitude to do more, attitude to be better than you possibly can be and going through brick walls with something else up in there.
At Watford, I was really, really lucky at the time I was at Watford. Nick Cox, his standards were very high all times and would hold players accountable. Dick Vate was the best coach educator I've ever heard, so he broke down things into memorable acronyms and his alliteration. He stood by me, the way he talked about the future game.
He was a genius. Tim and he was out of time, his technical detail was excellent. Mark Robertson was there at the time of 16 coach. His repetition without repeating things was incredibly different session every time.
Barry Quinn made me watch the game in a different way. I remember him talking about watching games from a coach with perspective. Watch this game from this perspective. Sean Deish was the 18 coach and he opened us of aligners to come and watch him.
Probably the one I was the one who I was the guy called Dave Godly. He gave me my first job there. And his connection with the players was incredible. He'd have a different way of connecting with every player.
There was a player, McKinworth, who for him he wanted him to jump higher, so he'd have a little game where he'd make him jump and head his hand every single time he could leave the session. And he just had a connection with every player. So he was ahead of his game at the time and he was the one who bought the 44 Man United model with Nick to the south and was huge on having a player-centered approach, which really stood by himself. I was really lucky.
I was really lucky at Watford. And then a full of, so too many people to mention. Hugh Jennings, the company manager, his patients, Steve Wiggly, his standards and his knowledge of the game. His times was, was there like Sean Deish's openness and just talked to you for hours about anything.
Around the game Sean Reed was his assistant. He came from not just a purely coaching perspective, but a really intelligent man who bought a lot to his coaching. Vic Bessinelli, probably the funniest man in football in coaching college. Kevin Bessie was at the time and his way he approached the players and his individualized approach was incredible.
Mike Cave, the way that he developed the club and really got his thing with the category 1 status and the thought behind everything. Jeff Noonan, the games program that would be good to talk about, the program that he developed, he was really, really sort of a key movement in Fulham. And Dan Thomas, who's been on the PDP, I think if anyone listens to him, he has a little saying, positive outlook on life, fantastic. By the way, he'd say good day, great day.
Choose to be happy, like little sayings that he'd have with you. Do you want to be the best? Like all those little things that would influence people around him. He was an excellent coach as well with great technical, technical, technical details.
So really, really lucky on my journey and working with you Dave as well. Like the work that we did with the, with the 11s and 12s, the way that the planning and preparation that we went through for every session was incredible. And that was something that I've not seen before, the way you prepare and plan every session was, was, was top and it sort of made me really, really nice of detail that was needed to prepare sessions. So yeah, lots of fantastic coaches I've worked with on my way.
I appreciate that after I certainly didn't expect to be in amongst that company. But what's some wonderful names? And I think we've been lucky enough to talk to Sean Reed and, and obviously Dan Thomas through the PDP and a couple others there. But you know, I think it's sort of, there's a massive lesson in that for coaches in the value of putting yourself in positions where you're around a variety of coaches and I can record my time at Redford.
And one of the things I talk about with a lot of, a lot of people who ask about it is the variety of staff, different types of coaches with different views and robust conversations and good debate around, you know, what you value to be true. And I think that's such a healthy thing. So I mean, just the impact that those people can have on you and little nuggets that you can take from them and apply your own coaching is such a great lesson. So certainly very fortunate on that journey.
Now, you've referred to the fact that you've recently moved from the UK and those amazing academy experiences and, you know, the different clubs you've worked at to the US. You're at New York City. You've had some time over 18 months in the city to see football to be working in the academy environment. What are some of the significant cultural differences you've seen both in terms of the game and coach behavior?
Yeah, I mean, we were just talking about this off air before the real New York must win attitude is prevailing everywhere. And I think that filters down into the sport. The biggest thing that I've seen in New York as well is it's still got very much of a pay-to-play model. So in terms of the demographic of the players that are playing football at the moment in New York is still limited.
But the one thing that struck me and if anyone goes to New York, just the sheer amount of football pitches that are in Manhattan and Brooklyn everywhere is incredible. The communities here, the clubbing community, all of the different communities around New York, there's so much love of football. People say it's probably the best place to watch the World Cup because you can go to any community in Queens. You can go and watch a brighter beach, you can go and watch a player and be in a Russian community.
In terms of the passion for the game is there, but it's still very young sport. I think New York City is only four years old as a club, New York City Football Club. But it's made huge strides in the last four years. They've put in a really impressive system in place where they've got a group of affiliate clubs that feed into the academy.
And the idea is that playable feed into the academy, but also feed out back into these affiliates. Ultimately, hopefully it's a feedback in. So in terms of the release retention that we were talking about as well, it's not so cut and dry. It's like, okay, go back to your affiliate club for a year, develop, get more game time, come back in.
That's been a positive. And they've had real success. They've got three home-grown players in the first team. They had Jack Harrison, who came over, who's now in the lead's first team.
He came over 15, came through the latter part of the academy and into the first team. And then they've got Giorrana, who is now playing in Europe as well. It's a tough one of the top talents in America. So there's real talent in New York City that hopefully they're tapping into, which has been really recent.
The UNIX just won the National Cup last year, which is a huge achievement. And then they've just been in Dallas at the moment, where they just got to the semi-final of the Dallas Cup. So in terms of the qualities of the players and the older age groups, it's there to see. And the positive is that there's a pathway to the MLS.
They still need to develop a USL club, which I think probably Redpools have got the slight advantage in those old pathways. They've got the 19s into the USL into the first team. But once they've got that final note in the coffee and got a fantastic training facility in Orangeburg, and it's like a mini-man city that he had at campus. And it's really, really, really good people in the building.
So, yeah, very lucky to be here. It's an interesting concept. Just to touch on the idea of release and retention and that system with players feeding in and back out. I think there's a lot of discussion within the academy system in the UK around the value of under 9-12, and winner at Zoom, AIK in Sweden, obviously as an example of a club that has removed that pressure and got a similar relationship with community clubs and satellite clubs around it.
I think there's a lot of discussion about the decision of New Zealand rugby recently with North Harbour rugby actually abandoning Red teams under 15 and 14, which traditionally is a really strong age group and a lot of history and 90-year history around this particular rugby tournament. Now that you've stepped away from that academy environment and you can sort of look a little bit objectively, do you think there is a rush at times of talent and do you sort of think that that retention release recruitment side of the game is an area that needs to be addressed? 100% without any shadow of a doubt. It's something that I was released twice as a player, and looking back on it now, it was something that I wasn't good enough.
It took me a while as a young man to come to terms with that, and it wasn't until I got back into the game coaching that it was like, okay, the quality to make it to the very top level, you've got to be a very good player. However, in my teenage years when it happened, but this is the release of retention we're talking about, it's happening with young players, 11, 12, 13, you know, influential times in their childhood. And I think that this system of having an affiliate where they can go and play in is a fantastic system. However, I know being in London, it would be very difficult to introduce, because there's 13 professional clubs.
There's so much competition for the best players. There's probably a lack of money being spent on the grassroots in London as well. So when they do go into grassroots teams, there is a big drop, and I think the first step for me would be to invest more money into grassroots, and then you can start to develop those affiliates with each club, and making each club responsible for the clubs in their own area, or somebody's over there the next step that you'd love to do. One club I know that do this, ESPN, and Tobin, they've got an interesting model, 9-12, they don't have academy teams.
However, when they play in tournaments, they recruit for their affiliates teams, and they put their teams into tournaments. So they've seen them in competitive environments, and they have academy coaches coaching in affiliate clubs. That can happen, but again, that's not over. That's one city, there's one or two clubs in that area.
London's different, there's 13 clubs in London, all that, the best players. I just don't know how it would go ahead, but I think it needs to be discussion about that, because there's a real case for premature professionalization with players as well, they get through to 13-14, they've been in the academy for six years. Where was the motivation for some of those players? It's not to have already been in it for so long.
I think they were the biggest things stepping away from it that I've been thinking about the most. Also, the fact that they, especially at some academies, they're training and having school seven days a week, so they train Saturday and Sunday, when do they get a chance to be a child? In order for seven, it's ripped out from underneath them. It's like, what are they now?
Are they a footballer? Are they a child? Where's my identity? I think because it's such a big part of their life to have it ripped away, it's a big thing.
Hopefully, there's talk about ways to improve in future. I know prior to recording this discussion, we talked a little bit about tradition dictating, having moved away from the academy scene and being in different cultures now. When you look at tradition dictating, you look at the history of English football. The evolution, obviously, the academy game in the last 10, 15 years has been very interesting, the way the U-Trip has changed things a lot for the better, but also that recruitment and that competition for players and that premature professionalism.
Obviously, it's a massive debate. I think the other really interesting point you touched on there was around identity. We were lucky enough to have Dr. Susie Brown on a masterclass around, she's a clinical psychologist and talking about attachment and identity and trauma with children, and how she's taking some of that work from a clinical setting into a sports space and just doing some work with Birmingham City and really just understanding the impact of this and the relationship between all those various parties is so interesting in how athletes tie their identity to their sport.
I think your example of being a player and being down after being released and having to be picked up through coaching resonates as an example of identity being tied to being a football player, isn't it? This is an area which I think sport is not doing well enough, and I think it's an area that particularly in the youth space needs to be addressed and people like Susie are obviously innovating. Some great examples there, just going back to the club at New York City, obviously a feeling new youth programme, a feeling new club in the MLS landscape, but obviously got some big backing financially and as you said, great access to facilities, but in terms of the youth programmes at the moment, what does the player development philosophy look like? Or even the playing philosophy when you see New York City team play?
Yeah, I mean it was heavily influenced by Rodolf Oberel who developed the philosophy in 2014. I think he was his role as head of City Football Group. He was a technical lead for the whole of the City Football Group, and he puts in place the philosophy, so it's very linked to, let's just say, the background of the way of playing in terms of the positional possession football, links to, obviously he's now a pitch assistant, a first-time assistant, so his influences would have come from that. Since playing in 4, 3, there are six phases in the model.
Phase one is playing out of the back. Phase two is playing through midfield. Phase three is great in converting. Phase four is high press.
Phase five is mid block and phase six is a deep block. So I've got four and six, and we've got there are six phases, and we coach through those phases. The idea of the numbers through me a little bit coming over here, the right back to number two and the left back to number five, the three and the four, the centre backs and the number six is the holding midfielder, which was slightly different. Same here in Australia.
It's usually a first-time. It's called in numbers of all-around. A huge emphasis on positional possession games, all the way from the twirls, all the way through, with transition being a key part of that, transition to the defence, transition to attack. So that's been for my development as a coach.
I think it's fantastic learning about that positional possession aspect of the game and implementing it on a daily basis, whereas I've used it before, but this is now on a daily basis, it's used in every same possession. It's nice to see that consistency or flowing down, and those themes, obviously, it's a nice way of looking at breaking the moments in the game down. We often talk about whether if club coaches are watching this or listening to this, are working in grassroots programs, whether they create a body of work and what that looks like, and it's a very subjective discussion, isn't it? But it's nice to have a theme, an overarching theme, and then have some freedom to work on what the players need.
I want to rewind a little bit and go back to your time. You've obviously touched on some of those means always at full, and you had five years there and five very good years, I think you would probably reflect on it in terms of your own development and some of the experiences you had at such a great club. What is it about full and it makes it unique, and what are some of your most memorable learning experiences for your time there? I think something you probably agree with is that when you walk through the gates at Monterey Park, it's a special place.
The first team in the academy there, the buildings, the old list of buildings, the facilities are incredible, but there's just a feeling when you walk through into the academy, into the training ground, it's a special place where you're there to work hard. I mean, for the six years, I was part-time, and I was a teacher, so I was teaching in South East London, driving through the traffic, getting to the training, and I'd be exhausted, but as soon as I drove through the gates, I was in big erectives, and it never failed to do that. So I think that feeling of a club and that environment was special, and that was created by the people that were there as well. So it was one of the biggest things that full and pride itself, instead of being open and inclusive, people would come in and be open about what we're doing, not hiding anything at all.
I think that was something from Lehigh opening up the window in the academy office and being able to peek out the window to say loads of players, as they go and pass, and those sorts of things make the club as a whole, and so I think that feeling of the club is really important. I spoke about Jeff Noonan and the games program. I think one of the biggest factors that we had, and Fulham-Stilters has, is it has a fantastic games program. There's 34 academy fixtures in the season, from under 9 to 15.
However, that was supplemented with an attitude of, we will play anyone who wants to play. So on a virtual weekly basis, there would be sides coming in, during training sessions where they'd be playing against our academy sides. 9 times out of 10, we'd always play a year up as well. So if we were playing the local district side, so at 12, we'd be playing the local district side, we'd be playing the end of 13s.
And we'd be on whatever space we had as well. They didn't have to be a perfect space. We'd play on tiny field for 11, 11 or whatever facility, whatever space we had, based on the other groups there. No referees, we just hadn't played.
And the idea was that the whole training session, if it's a 19-minute training session, the whole training session was a game. They'd come in and they'd play. And so that was fantastic. The next caveat on the games program was the overseas tournaments.
Jeff was one of the first people to say, okay, let's go to any tournament we can do in Europe. We had a very good link with tournaments in Germany and Portugal and Holland. Probably the best one we'd go to was this one in Holland in Van Loewhe, the boys in the 15s would stay in a barn, they'd have to block their own beds, they'd have to look after themselves, get the breakfast in the morning, we'd go over on a coach and have two teams together and go and play, that's all. And then they'd come back and look after themselves.
And I think that comes back to the identity of a play. I think one of the best things about Fulham was the understanding that we had to develop. We're not just a developer, but we're there to develop those people. Good people and hold them to high standards.
And I think we were able to do that on tours. And we went on so many tours with the players. I think boy, who's at MK Johnson, I'm not so an older, he's in the 18s. I think he told me in his time at Fulham, he went on 50 international tournaments from 9 to 16.
That's incredible. And the idea was from Jeff was like, we'll go to any tournament we can go to. We don't have to stay in a box of hotels, we'll stay and we'll go. When we go, we go to compete.
But most importantly, we respect. We hold the Fulham name high and when we hopefully people will turn around and say that there were fantastic group players and a fantastic group of footballers. But the fantastic group of players was a people was the most important thing. I couldn't agree more with your first statement around the tangible field of the place when you walk in.
And I think the fact that the club walks the walk, and I think also those that knock a academy football from the outside often forget that whilst it may only be the 1% of players who are in there, I'll never forget you saying to me, we always have to consider the opportunity that these players are being afforded in terms of the amazing experiences they get. You know, you talked about Ryan Sissonion again, 50 plus tournaments through his time as an academy player. Now again, whilst he is in the minority, there's a great upside for player in terms of personal development and having been on some of those tours, the personal development that unfolded the leadership stories, the stories of I can remember, golf people we work for in Germany, overcoming his anxiety and we're trying to get to play like no more nor be confident to play the ball and all these sort of social psychological upsides are so important. And just on the games program as well, we recently recorded a Q&A on the value of mixed experiences and the message you're putting across really aligns with some of the conversations we had previously with Dan Machichi in the interviews we did in the magazine with him around those different game formats.
And I think just getting, again, it doesn't have to be Academy football within grassroots or community football. You can still arrange friendly fixtures and midweek fixtures against different teams and give their variety. So some great bits of advice there and some really interesting insights. Just going on to sort of a broader view of play development, we've sort of developed a model which is obviously very much created to contribute as an hour in Jimmy Vaughn and different people who have contributed to the site over the years around a play center approach, which in itself is not new, but I guess looking at it around the sort of micro macro factors, socio-cultural influences and so on, it's something we promote heavily as the environment being at the center and the player setting at the center of that.
Why do you believe a player centered approach is so important and how would you go about implementing that into your day-to-day coaching? Yeah, I think it comes down to the individual again. The role of the Academy and Academy coaches to fulfill each player's potential. And that for Ryan Sessinone needs to be a premiership footballer and a top-top player, but for another player, his fulfilling his potential might be something different.
We've got to be understanding of every player's different and making sure that we differentiate our approach to players in a variety of different ways. There's not a one-size-fits-all, especially in a club that takes its players, I fall into a variety of different backgrounds. It's really, really important to know the player and know what makes him tick, and then you can start to develop them as a player. One of the best sayings that I've heard was Connect before Correct, and Connecting with the players, knowing what makes a player tick, what does he do on a day-to-day?
What does he look like before he gets to training? How does he get to training? Who takes him home for training? What does he do?
All of those things we've got to get to know the player. And then once you get to know the player, then you can start to stretch him to the next level and finding out ways to communicate with him. I was talking to someone earlier about individualising sessions, and for me that's good teaching practice. As a teacher, you talk to make sure that you speak to every single person in your classroom.
You don't just deliver a sermon to the whole class, you speak to every single individual and make sure they understand, because it's not just teaching, it's making sure the learning is taking place. In a way that you can make sure that learning is taking places, but having those conversations around them. Once you've got to know the player, that's when you can start to really design practices around their individual needs. Once you start doing that, then you can start holding the player's accountable for their own actions, and you can start giving him ownership of what he wants to learn.
It becomes circular after that, they want to develop themselves because they can see themselves getting better. You're helping them do that. You're putting them sessions around them. It doesn't happen overnight.
It's a real investment in the player. It's a real investment in trying to get to know him. Also, I spoke about your planning before the session. At the very start of the chat was planning around those individual players and having interventions for the players.
Making sure that you plan those interventions and making sure someone comes naturally, but someone needs to make sure you remind yourself, like, I need to talk about, I need to talk about, I need to talk about, I need to talk about, I need to talk about, I need to talk about something. We need to have a little chat to think about. It comes down to planning and then reviewing afterwards, I want to chat with the player. All of those things and it becomes it's down to connecting.
I really believe that. Fantastic advice for coaches. It does segue beautifully into the next question around the practical side of delivery. What advice would you have for coaches, potentially at the start of their journey or whatever stage they are at when it comes to planning sessions?
You touch on the individual side, but you're sitting down a plan and what are some of those considerations that you put in place? I think you've got to use your time wisely. I think the reason as a coach, people say they don't have enough time to plan. You have bank holidays where you can spend half of a bank holiday planning the next six weeks of sessions.
Then you've got an idea of where to want to be for the next six weeks of sessions as a whole. Then at the start of the week you can plan on, okay, these are what I want you to do for this week. So you've got to, instead of like every single day you're planning, oh, I've got to do this, this, this, this, this, this, no, you have a broad idea of what you want to achieve. Once you've got that, that's when you can start to individualise your sessions.
I'm a big believer in not having too many complicated sessions and we've got to do this, we've got to do this one, try this one. Big believer in calling sessions names. That's why I think the positional possession work because I'm going to do 3v3 plus 3. They know what you're talking about.
You know what they're talking about? 3v3 plus 3. The magic men are going to be the six, eight and ten. All right, simple.
So now you've got to do a really good practice. Then you can start individualising it.