Greater Manchester Centre of Excellence

Dad, my boot laces keep coming undone!

2009-03-04T15:55:00.002Z

As has often been said at Centre meetings “it is those little things that make all the difference at the very top level”. We have coaches who work on tactics, individual skills and fitness, physiotherapists who put you all back together when you have been injured, sports scientists who monitor nutrition, hydration and physical condition, the FA who apply the rules and create the pathways that allow you to progress from U10’s through to the England team, and then there are people like me.

I have decided that my role in the whole set-up is to provide you with access to the most useless and inconsequential research that may just make that 0.0001% improvement in your game. It is my duty to provide you with at least a thousand bits of utterly fascinating bits of information that, when added together, may just about make a very, very important 0.1% difference to your games.

So to begin with, believe it or not, there is a website that tells you how to lace up your boots properly as there is, apparently, a right and a wrong way to do it. One way encourages the laces to loosen as you play and one uses the tension created to tighten the knot.

The gentleman who created the site, Ian Fieggen, is quoted in the April 2009 edition of Runner’s World as saying that he left his full-time job in 2007 to devote his life to teaching people how to tie their shoes, and specifically to create a shoelace handbook, Laces, that he published later that year (and you thought I was bad!!).

His body of work is available on his website and I suggest that you all check out the “Slipping Laces” section immediately. The website can be accessed by clicking the title of this article "Dad, my boot laces keep coming undone" above.

The full Runner’s World article is available at http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/news/article.asp?uan=482 but you may need to subscribe to the site to access it.

Now then, is it right over left or left over right?

Everton Shirt

2009-02-28T17:53:00.002Z

As part of our fundraising initiative we have managed to acquire a signed, and fully authenticated, Everton shirt.

If you fancy lodging a bid for the shirt then drop me an e-mail. We have placed an undisclosed reserve on this fabulous piece of football memerobilia but, if our reserve is not met, we will put it up for auction at our Race Night at Curzon Ashton on 7th March 2009.

Throw Ins

2009-01-19T16:08:00.003Z

Recently I have found myself smiling at all the fuss that Stoke City’s Rory Delap has caused with his thunderbolt throw-ins. His ability to hurl the ball into the penalty area has had managers and players bleating on about how ugly and unfair it is of the Potters to do it. The fuss made seemed to be in direct relation to the havoc that had been caused by this simplest of tactics. It ‘aint pretty but how unsettled have the Premiership big boys been by it all?

'The human sling', was how Everton manager David Moyes described Delap after Everton won 3-2 at Stoke despite twice succumbing to the midfielder's long throw-ins.

Aston Villa boss Martin O'Neill looked bewildered as he tried to explain how you defend the missile that led to Stoke's last-minute winner.

“I have never seen anything like this in my life,” said Chelsea’s manager, Luiz Felipe Scolari, who professed to be less concerned by the aesthetics of the Republic of Ireland midfielder’s throw than by its effectiveness and consistent threat. “If you are making goals, it’s more beautiful than not making goals,” the pragmatic Brazilian said.

It is certainly not a new tactic. Tranmere Rovers had a player called Dave Challinor (who went on to captain Bury ;-)) and it was reported in 2000, by the BBC, that he hurled the ball a world record distance of 46.34m. Over 46m!!! In reality that is much further than the majority of us could kick the ball and would, in effect, mean that just about any throw-in conceded in the opposition half could be chucked into the area like a corner kick. Just imagine being able to throw the ball from the goal line pretty much to the half way line.

One of the major problems for defenders is that their opponents cannot be given offside from a throw-in and as such they can pack the six yard area and prevent the goalkeeper from coming out to collect the ball. This means that, inevitably, the ball is bouncing around in a very dangerous area and often goals are conceded from chaotic passages of play.

Law 15 states

A throw-in is a method of restarting play.

A throw-in is awarded to the opponents of the player who last touched the ball when the whole of the ball crosses the touch line, either on the ground or in the air.

A goal cannot be scored directly from a throw-in.

Procedure

At the moment of delivering the ball, the thrower:
• faces the field of play
• has part of each foot either on the touch line or on the ground outside the touch line
• holds the ball with both hands
• delivers the ball from behind and over his head
• delivers the ball from the point where it left the field of play

It also states that if an opponent unfairly distracts or impedes the thrower then he should be cautioned for unsporting behaviour and that all opponents must stand no less than 2m from the point at which the throw-in is taken. In reality this means that the throw cannot be blocked and, if it is, it is an automatic yellow card. However, if you are thinking of always jumping up in the way of a throw, click onto the link below……still wanna block it?

http://footballinfinland.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/great-throw-ins-of-our-time/

Barnoldswick

2008-11-23T11:54:00.003Z

Did anyone else spot the electronic speed indicator (I am sure there is a much more technical phrase for it than that!) on the road out of Barnoldswick yesterday? It showed a smiley face if you were doing less than 30 miles an hour and a sad face face if you were going faster than that (erm........so someone else told me Mr. Policeman). It amused me anyway.

Trivia alert 1: Did you know that Barnoldswick is one of the longest place names in the UK that does not have any repeating letters in its name?

Triva alert 2 : Barnoldswick is often cited as being one of the largest towns in the UK not to be served by A-roads!

Women's U20's World Cup

2008-11-23T11:36:00.007Z

The England U17s team finished 4th in the World Cup and now the Under 20's are competing in their World Cup in Chile.

England beat the hosts Chile 2-0 in the opening game and drew 1-1 with Nigeria to stay top of their group.

Their final group game is on the 26th November against New Zealand in Santiago.

Should they qualify for the quarter-finals then they will be playing on November 30th.

The games are being shown live on Eurosport so try and catch them if you can.

To follow their progress please click on the title "Womens's U20 World Cup" at the top of this post for a link to the official FA site for the tournament. (See, you are never too old to learn something new!!)

Women's U17's World Cup

2008-11-12T10:34:00.003Z

Don't forget to send your support out to the girls in New Zealand. They have managed to battle their way into the World Cup semi-finals and are playing North Korea tomorrow morning(13th November). North Korea beat Denmark 4-0 in the quarter finals so England have another tough game on their hands.

Come on England.

Women's U17's World Cup

2008-11-01T21:36:00.004Z

The U17 Women's World Cup has started in New Zealand. England were completely dominant in their opening fixture and ran out easy 3-0 winners against Brazil. In the England starting line up was Jessica Holbrook who used to be a member of the Old Stockport Centre of Excellence and played against our U16's last season in the Centre of Excellence programme!!

England's next group games are against Nigeria on the 2nd November and South Korea on the 5th before, hopefully, taking their place in the quarter final line up on the 8th November.

The games are being televised on Eurosport and it is a real shame that there has been so little coverage of it in the media. Maybe they will pay more attention when the girls progress in the tournament. One thing for sure is that if they continue to produce such high quality performances then they have the potential to go a long, long way.

Come on England!

Crewe Alexandra

2008-10-09T13:45:00.002+01:00

“You have reached you’re destination” is a statement that generally tends to means I have made it to where I am going, however, when I heard it on Saturday it signalled the start of just a little tremor of panic as there was not a single playing field, or university campus in sight. “You have reached you’re destination” the robotic female voice repeated. Well, unless we were playing on the pavement outside 32, Windsor Gardens then I was definitely in the wrong place. 45 minutes to kick off and I was in darkest Peru. (actually I was just the other side of Alsager but that is nowhere near as dramatic!). It could have been worse though, I could have been following the coach which apparently went to Gresty Road (or the Alexandra Stadium as it is now known) :-) And you all thought it was only me that could get lost!

After just a tiny, tiny bit of muttering I frantically punched the postcode into the satnav again and was redirected to MMU Cheshire. I told the electronic navigator that it had done well to get us so near but that I expected a better end product from it in the future (Emma Jenks 2006/7/8/9……).

We eventually parked up and wandered aimlessly around looking for the pitches (no doubt much to the amusement of my satnav) until two of the Crewe parents very kindly pointed us in the right direction. “Take the next left, follow the road to the right and in 200 metres you will have reached your destination” they said. Hmmmmm where had I heard that before? As it turned out the last part of the journey was relatively straight forwards - we just followed the noise until the darting black and white shirts came into view.

I couldn’t help noticing the molehills that were scattered around and not being a “country lad” in any way, shape, or form I found myself fascinated by those little piles of soil all over the place. “I’ve got this mole ya know…..” Jasper Carrott used to say back in the days when he was funny (well before the “Goldenballs” television show that he currently presents had been devised). I waited patiently throughout the game for a mole to pop up just as we were due to take a penalty but alas it was not to be. The gentle footfalls of our players must have kept them all hiding deep, deep underground. How much would David Beckham (how slick is that link?) have paid to have had a mole as an excuse when he “slipped” taking that penalty?

Anyway, enough of this, I don’t want to make a mountain out of a molehill. (groan)

Trivia Alert…a group of moles is called a labour (or labor as Lucy would pronounce it now!)!

Rumour Central…There was a mention on Century Radio for the Centre. Anyone admitting to doing it?

Well done girls, some excellent results this weekend. Next up are Hull at Salford. Surely by now I can find our home ground easily. Surely.

Club Nickname

2008-10-01T13:16:00.002+01:00

So there I was sitting in the queue at the end of the M62, tapping the steering wheel impatiently having turned down the volume on the satnav as there are only so many times that you can put up with being told to “take the next exit and follow the road to the left” when in fact you are moving at a speed of 1 inch per hour (that’s 2.54 centimetres an hour if the players are reading this!) when I got to thinking. Yes, I know how dangerous that can be but what else can you do after you have made as many words as you can out of the letters of the car registration in front of you? Anyway, it suddenly dawned on me that the Centre has not adopted a nickname!

Our opponents were Everton “The “Toffemen” which, according to Wikipedia, they came to be known as because there was a business near the ground called Mother Noblett's Toffee Shop which advertised and sold sweets, including the Everton Mint, on match days. This also led to the Toffee Lady tradition in which a girl walks around the perimeter of the pitch before the start of a game tossing free Everton Mints into the crowd. Another possible reason is that there was a house called Ye Anciente Everton Toffee House near the Queen's Head hotel in which early club meetings took place. The word "toffee" was also slang referring to Irishmen, of which there was a large population in the city at the turn of the century and who tended to support Everton rather than city rivals Liverpool!” Incidentally I also found out that Everton used to play at Anfield before moving to Goodison after a rent dispute in 1878 which proves conclusively that you are never too old to learn something new after all.

Throughout this season we will come across the Railwaymen (Crewe Alexandra), The Reds (Liverpool), Rovers (Blackburn), The Tigers (Hull), The Blades (Sheffield United), The Potters (Stoke City), United (Leeds United) and we have already played The Magpies (Newcastle).

There are many other weird and wonderful football club nicknames with the best obviously being The Shakers (Bury). There are herds of animals to be had with Black Cats (Sunderland), Rams (Derby County), Wolves (Wolverhampton Wanderers), Foxes (Leicester City), Shrews (Shrewsbury Town), and Lions (Millwall), plus swarms of birds Swans (Swansea City) Robins (Bristol City) Bluebirds (Cardiff City) and Eagles (Crystal Palace) to name but a few. Bees (Brentford and Barnet) and Hornets (Watford) feature as well as many industries such as Chairboys (Wycombe Wanderers) and Hatters (Stockport County and Luton). So as you can see anything is fair game when it comes to nicknames for Clubs.

What we would need is something associated with the area, the team colours or centre philosophy, however, what also needs to be considered is that we are a centre for girls who either are, or are approaching, their teenage years so there is probably no point going for a colour as it might clash with everything or anything “geeky” because that would be so uncool it doesn’t bear thinking about and as for the effect on street cred…well! Actually, by now, uncool is probably an uncool thing to say…..oh I give up, you know what I mean!

So, over to you lot. Send you ideas for a Centre nickname to Matt and we will have a think.

Maybe "The Hair Straighteners" or "The Mobiles" should be considered or even "The Fly Swatters" which will have all the opposition puzzled until they play us at Salford in April. My personal favourite is the “The Barcodes” but I can see how that might be misinterpreted when shouted from the sidelines on a freezing February morning.

Have fun.

Big Arnie?

2008-09-26T12:47:00.003+01:00

Do you think Everton will have flags for the linesman or will we have to resort to the red and yellow cones that we used in Manchester last week? I really missed that unique material sound of the flag being raised and waved just prior to someone shouting “Dad, just who is the linesman?” It wasn’t the same somehow. I was sorely tempted to say he was “Coneman the Barbarian” but I suspect that might have aged me just a little bit too much.

Hasta la vista...

Kidd, Stokoe, Pleat and Jenks

2008-09-21T16:30:00.002+01:00

You may not have spotted the manager’s goal celebration after Manchester U16’s second goal yesterday but it was a full “Brian Kidd” type slide after a corner kick was superbly headed into the back of the net by Kalli. The reason? Training on Thursday was all about corners and set pieces and the results of that hard work was there for all to see. Well done Jenksy, Chris and the girls but we might need to work a little harder on the celebrations.

Lucy

2008-09-20T07:27:00.003+01:00

Following on from our spectator spotting last week I can now announce that Lucy is joining Sue as Head coach of the Under 12's with Claire Mulvenna. Amber will now have a "floating" role and will be conducting one to one sessions with players.

Welcome back Lucy.

Everton

2008-09-15T13:25:00.001+01:00

The first league games of the season seemed like the perfect time to start our gmcoe blog but this is not a diary dedicated to our elder squad (won’t they just love me for that label?) but one that I hope captures the essence of the Centre and all the fantastic players, staff and supporters that the Centre has. Be warned though, my bloggers will soon be everywhere!!!

A word about referees….no, not that one! There was an element of controversy surrounding a disallowed Manchester “goal” at the weekend and I am not sure that asking the Everton players if the ball had crossed the line was the way forwards (I think I can say for certain what two of our own defenders would have said if the situation had been reversed!), however, the referee made some stunning decisions with respect to throw ins and corners. How he managed to see/hear some of the very faint deflections amazed me. Well done that man.

It was a great game to watch though and the U16’s can consider themselves very unfortunate not to have won.

A welcome spectator

2008-09-14T18:09:00.002+01:00

Spotted watching the U16's game from the sidelines was a recent returnee from the good old U S of A. Welcome back Lucy and hopefully we will see, and hear, more of you in the very near future.

Fantasy Football

2008-09-14T17:35:00.001+01:00

As you may be aware the centre is running a Fantasy Football league and I am pleased to say that I was top of the 29 team league before the girl’s games kicked off today. Don’t ask me how it happened, it just did. I was quite happy to smile to myself and think that maybe, just maybe, I knew a little bit about the Premiership.

For some people, however, that was not enough and an unnamed member of my family took great delight in taunting some of the other contestants involved.

She really should know better than to risk the wrath of the Fantasy Football Gods and within hours Vidic and Terry had been sent off, Liverpool had beaten United and City “the richest club on the planet” had failed miserably to overcome Chelsea! “Forever Bury” had plunged from 1st to 11th and the smile on a certain fantasy footballer’s face must have been as wide as the Mersey as he flew out of the pack to the League summit.

Well done Alan you had me laughing aloud and I think someone somewhere will be eating humble pie this week.

Absolute quality.

Hellooooooooo.......

2008-09-13T20:02:00.001+01:00

Welcome to the Greater Manchester Centre of Excellence blog. This is not the place to come for match reports, latest news or fitness updates as they can all be found at www.gmcoe.co.uk. This will be the home of all the off-field stuff and will hopefully show things from a considerably less serious perspective. If you want to contribute to our blog then please drop me an e-mail.