Our golden era came from within

I READ Sam Elliott’s article regarding the coaching culture in football these days

(NLP, October 23) headlined ‘It’s Time to Earn Your Stripes’.

English coaches dominated European football in the 1970s and 80s with the likes of Bob Paisley, Bobby Robson, Brian Clough, Keith Burkinshaw and Tony Barton all lifting UEFA trophies. The FA’s fantastic coaching scheme was renowned all over the world.

Players would take the preliminary badge and then the full badge whilst still playing, their love and enthusiasm for the game would take them on to coaching.

Tony Pulis summed this up brilliantly during an interview when he said that he could remember travelling to away games as a player, and whilst on the coach some would listen to music, others would read books. There would be another group who would talk football all the way there and all the way back because they loved the game. This love of the game took them on to coaching, all happy to get their hands dirty.

The high regard of our coaches and our FA Scheme was so good that foreign coaches would come over to watch our English coaches’ work. The former England manager Sven Goran Eriksson stayed at Jack Charlton’s house for a week, back when big Jack was manager of Sheffield Wednesday.

Current Republic of Ireland manager Martin O’Neill started out in the Beazer Homes League Midland division. If the likes of Dwight Yorke, Ryan Giggs and Sol Campbell did the same, maybe we could see the return of a coaching culture so rich in our game. GAVIN BLACKWELL, via email