No Rest For The Wicked.  But loving it!!

Apologies for the lack of Blog posts lately but it's been pretty much a non-stop summer for me this time.  Thanks to all parents and players who have and continue to attend our Saturday morning sessions.  We're looking forward to restarting in September.  I thought it would be the 5th but due to my FA Disability Talent ID programme commitments (see later on in the blog) I'm now unavailable until the second Saturday (12th).

As an FA Coach Mentor, I completed my allocation of mentoring hours with my first two clubs and in July I was assigned two more clubs to work with this season.  I've really enjoyed working within this new FA scheme, along with around 300 other FA Coach Mentors in England.  The feedback from both the coaches I've worked with and also the FA and County FA has been positive.  I look forward to another season, providing "CPD on tour" as someone has correctly described it!

After working in the West Riding County FA Girls' Player Development Centre, coaching the u11s last season, I've been asked to run the u15s at the centre this season, so I'm really looking forward to that new challenge.  Girls football is growing fast and as a result of a successful national world cup campaign by the England Ladies, I'm looking to provide group coaching as part of our Saturday sessions.  Watch this space.

The ExPro Academy pre season has gone well, with a successful recruitment campaign bringing around 25 players into the Academy, from all areas, including Spain, Portugal, the USA and of course UK players as well, from Wales and locally in Yorkshire.  Based at Brighouse Town FC we work together Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays & Fridays, playing matches on Thursday mornings against Academies and on Thursday evenings against various teams around Yorkshire.  At the time of writing this we've had 3 friendlies against Yorkshire based teams and have won all of them, performing well in all positions.  We start our full on training 4 days a week on Monday 1st September.

Another development as mentioned earlier is that I've been appointed as Lead Coach for the West Riding County FA Disabled Players' Talent Identification Programme for Junior Boys u16.  I'm really excited to be a part of what is an extremely fast recruitment process where a talented player can be spotted and fast tracked into the England squad within 6 weeks!  What an opportunity.

See you all soon.       Mark Brier