Something in the Water , livre ebook

Pitch Publishing Ltd - Callum Murray

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129 pages

English

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Something in the Water explores the inner workings of England's football-talent hotbeds, investigating how these areas so often create elite footballers. For decades working-class northern towns have churned out players like a factory conveyor belt - places like Huyton, a town of just over 33,000 that has produced the likes of Steven Gerrard, Peter Reid, David Nugent, Joey Barton and Tony Hibbert. However, the emergence of south London as the new-school hotbed is exciting. Players produced here are like nothing seen before in England. The concrete Catalonia is home to a new generation of stars such as Jadon Sancho, Wilf Zaha, Joe Gomez, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Joe Aribo and others. Bringing together the thoughts and ideas of those involved at every level of the game - from the south London estate cages to the heights of the Premier League and Europe's elite - the book unearths the secrets of two distinct types of hotbed that represent the past, present and possible future of English football.

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Publié par	Pitch Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	29 août 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781801503167
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2022
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Callum Murray, 2022
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright.
Any oversight will be rectified in future editions at the earliest opportunity by the publisher.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781801501606
eBook ISBN 9781801503167
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Contents
1. The Beginning of the Journey
2. A View From the World
3. The Talent Development Environment: Population Size, Population Density and Facilities
4. The Kids From the Estate
5. Football as a Way of Life - To Get Out and Get Up
6. The Melting Pot
7. The Role Model Effect
8. Football Culture in England and its Talent Hotbeds
9. Street Football and The Cage
10. Community Outreach
11. A Hotbed Creating Resilience
12. What Lessons Can We Learn from the Makeup of Hotbeds?
Acknowledgements
Notes.
Photos
I would firstly like to thank my mum, dad and Evie for their great support throughout this process, as well as my wider family and friends.
I would also like to show my gratitude to Simon C and Patrick H - two of the greatest friends and mentors that one could hope for, who have offered advice, help and support since the very beginning of this project and beyond, mentally, physically, and spiritually.
Lastly, this book is dedicated to anyone out there kicking a ball around in the street. Never give up, no matter who or where you are!
Amor Fati
1
The Beginning of the Journey
ON A wet March evening at the Estadi Ol mpic in 2007, England clinched a 3-0 victory against Andorra as Steve McLaren s men fought for UEFA Euro 2008 qualification. I say England, but as West Ham United fans claim that they won the golden Jules Rimet Trophy for the Three Lions in 1966, the three points on that night in 2007 were won by Huyton - a relatively small town on the edge of Liverpool, the birthplace of England s goalscorers Steven Gerrard and David Nugent. In fact, Huyton s Bluebell estate may stake a claim to the victory, as both the Gerrard and Nugent families lived in the same small, rough council estate in the heart of L36. It was certainly a night to remember for two sporting sons of the suburb, but also a night for all young working-class council estate boys up and down the country to savour. It showed that dreams can become a reality.
How can one deprived council estate in a relatively unknown town in north-west England raise a group of international footballers? Maybe there is something more to this.
The intimidating barrios of Rosario. The compact and dense favelas of Rio de Janeiro. The concrete banlieues of Paris. The shanty-like Spartak tennis club of Moscow. The running tracks of Itan, Kenya. All hotbeds of talent in their own right, producing some of the greatest sports stars ever seen. But what is it that makes these places tick and just how do they do it? These small factories of talent somehow manage to create, develop and nurture elite athletes at an unbelievable rate, while seemingly the rest of the world sits back wishing they could be in on the secret of how to produce elite-level talent.
To have a special talent is something that every single one of us yearns for. For this gift to take us to the lofty heights of stardom is something that a lot of us dream of - our childhoods often hanging on such dreams and aspirations as we played football in the playground, sang loudly in the shower, practised magic tricks at family parties or danced behind our closed bedroom door. As American novelist Erica Jong claimed, everyone has talent. Jong could well be correct. Maybe we do all have a special talent within us, and that people just have their talent manifest in different forms, of which there is an endless list. I m inclined to go with that.
Perhaps it is the self-discovery of the talent you ve been blessed with, and then the nurturing and use of it, that is in fact the special thing, and what sets us apart from average people. People who in fact probably aren t that average at all, but more than likely are those who have just not discovered and nurtured their gift yet. There are so many different talents to be appreciated and shown off to the world. Your talent could be baking, playing the piano, being a maths genius or even having the voice of an angel. Or it could be the one that nearly every young child in England goes to bed each night dreaming of as they get tucked in: to be so talented that they make it as a professional footballer.
But what if your talent - or at least your chances of becoming a professional football player - was already determined before you even started kicking a ball, or maybe before you even started kicking inside the womb? While you may be reading this and thinking about the genetic lineage, this is not totally where we are heading. Think about this: by sheer coincidence or the decision of your parents, you were raised in a certain city, town or estate. It is quite possibly the case that your birthplace, the area you grow up in, your childhood, your friends and family, and other environmental and sociocultural circumstances (and potentially even some added good luck) all play a major role in deciding whether or not you develop to be a talented individual. Or more specifically in this case, a talented professional footballer. Whether you were born in the north or the south may have had an impact. What happens to your chances of making it as a talented player if you grew up in a major city in the north-east or a rural village in the south-west? How would this impact your talent development?
The theory behind all of this leads us down the path to the investigation of the somewhat mythical talent hotbeds. Daniel Coyle has written and spoken as someone who has travelled and witnessed many of these talent hotbeds throughout the world and studied recurrent themes from these seemingly miracle-working talent-making machines. Coyle put forward his findings, suggesting how the wiring of our brains can help to create and nurture ability leading to elite-level performance and results. 1 The case studies upon which this conclusion was founded would show some good evidence. However, there are still questions to be asked and lessons to be learnt from these special places. What are talent hotbeds and how exactly do they work? What does a footballing talent hotbed in England look like? Can we help to create a talent hotbed? Maybe you re in a hotbed right now, as you read this very sentence. Look around. In fact, take a minute to think about the street, estate, area, town or city that you grew up in. How many footballers, athletes, musicians, political leaders or actors grew up in the same place? There are some small towns that would boast all five.
Taking a worldwide view of football, it is the biggest sport by some margin. According to FIFA.com , the 2018 World Cup held in Russia was viewed by half of the world s population - around 3.5 billion viewers - with the final between France and Croatia hitting peak viewing figures of around 1.2 billion. 2 Bear in mind that these two countries only have a combined population of just over 70 million, and you can see just how big this sport is.
England, however, is what many would describe as the spiritual home of football, founders of the professional game with the Football Association in the late 19th century. Since then, England has produced some of the best players and stars in world football across many generations, including William Ralph Dixie Dean, Stanley Matthews, Bobby Moore, Bobby Charlton, Bryan Robson, Paul Gascoigne, Michael Owen, Steven Gerrard, David Beckham, Frank Lampard and Wayne Rooney. The list could go on. And so, while the proud Englishman would declare his country the birthplace and Mecca of the game they love so dearly, there is still one debate that is ever-present among English footballing circles - where is the home of English football?
Many would say the north-west, given the titles and domination of its clubs, but also its production of some of the best professional football players. The statistics would go some way to back this up. Of the 1,200 or so players who have represented England, just under 300 were born in the northwest, the largest crop by some way, although other areas such as the north-east, Yorkshire and London would also have a right to stake a claim for the accolade. The capital appears to buck the trend for the south, having produced just under 200 England internationals. 3 You can also look at the mining towns of the north for some stellar production, given the number of English players that have been born from these regions over the last century.
That being said, it would be unfair and too simplistic to broadly claim that it is the north-west and London that produce England s real talent. It is not a deep enough analysis. It goes further than that, into smaller pockets of these regions in this football-obsessed country that is now teetering on the edge of glory on the world stage, blessed with some of the most exciting young stars currently playing this wonderful game.
By scanning the statistics and numbers, you could generally work out that the majority of good players come from the big cities, and that would make sense. According to S