How Thurso coach Gunn conquered the continent... with a little help from his friends
A SIGNED shirt from Dutch legend Frank de Boer dropped through the letterbox just the other day. Warm words carry on rolling in from the great and good of professional football from all over Europe. For Alyn Gunn, though, one piece of correspondence over the book of training drills he developed to help kids get through lockdown — which has since exploded into a huge success across the continent — sticks in the mind. ‘A few parents asked for advice on how to set up the drills and it was back to jumpers-for-goalposts in the back garden,’ he said. ‘One parent actually told me that they felt it had helped them get closer to their children. ‘For me, that was brilliant. People work hard, they might not have had time for this sort of thing before and it has worked in more ways than one if it has helped some families come closer together. ‘I am just delighted it has helped so many people. I have been involved in this for 22 years, starting when I was 14 years old, and football is just part of me.’ Gunn, head of coaching at Thurso Football Academy and committed to taking free football into local schools there, has been voted a UK Coaching Hero as a result of his work to find a way to keep children active during the pandemic and will receive his award at Inverness Caledonian Thistle’s home game with Morton on October 16. His coaching booklet ‘Tiny Tacklers’, accompanied by a free football and a free water bottle, started off as a guide for 25 kids around Thurso. However, Gunn used his contacts to draft in a host of big names such as
Frank and Ronald de Boer, ex-Rangers midfielder Pedro Mendes, former Scotland boss Alex McLeish, Aberdeen’s Joe Lewis and Livingston captain Marvin Bartley to publicise the scheme and it exploded to the extent that 10,000 copies were funded, printed and sent all over Europe. ‘We’re in the sticks in Thurso and we don’t have much up here, so, when the lockdown hit, something inside me said that we had to do something to help these kids out,’ recalled Gunn. ‘They were off school, stuck indoors and I’d always had plans to use training drills we’d produced at the academy and get them into a booklet, modified for use in the back garden or wherever. ‘We got really good backing. It started for 25 kids up in Thurso and ended with 10,000 copies being sent all over Europe to schools and clubs. We also got funding from a local wind farm to give away the footballs and water bottles as well. At the start, 100 kids in Thurso were interested and we only had 25 footballs, water bottles and booklets. We put the names in a hat, but we just couldn’t see any child miss out and it progressed from there. I never had any plans to expand it across Europe, but the de Boers or Pedro Mendes would get their photo taken with the booklet, put it on social media and interest grew. ‘It is in France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy now. I can’t believe how far it has gone. There are only 20 copies of the hardback left and any future copies will be PDFs. Quite honestly, we couldn’t afford to do much more than we did. It cost us over £3,500. ‘When I found out I had won this award for it, though, I was shocked. It is very humbling.’
Gunn and all prizewinners, most of whom received their awards at a ceremony in Leeds yesterday, have been praised for their effort by chair of UK Coaching Atholl Duncan. ‘We couldn’t be prouder of the exceptional coaching contribution over the last year,’ said Duncan. ‘A huge congratulations to all of our winners — coaches who have championed sport participation at every level through the most challenging of circumstances and shown remarkable initiative to ensure as many as possible can stay active.’
It started with 25 kids and ended up with 10,000 copies across Europe
Dutch of class: Frank de Boer with his copy of Tiny Tacklers