Pete Sturgess: helping kids ‘Play Their Way’

Widely credited with progressing grassroots football development within England during its recent overhaul, Pete Sturgess dedicated his 17 years at The FA to creating amazing positive experiences for young players to learn and develop. For his impact, he was recognised with a Lifetime Achievement Award from UK Coaching in 2023. And earlier this year, Pete was inducted into The FA’s coaching hall of fame.

Pete committed his whole career to improving the coaching of the youngest players, actively choosing to work with younger age groups to help embed creativity and play into coaching practices. This dedication to supporting young players, and his child-centred approach to coaching, positioned him as a key contributor to England Football’s DNA during the tenure of then technical director, Dan Ashworth.

Pete continues to advocate for prioritising enjoyment and freedom for young people being coached, now supporting as a voice for ‘Play Their Way’, a national campaign and movement to create a nation of child-first coaches.

Discussing how his approach to coaching changed over the course of a long and distinguished career, Sturgess reflected on the very start of his own journey, going from playing football to being a player coach when he was 35:

“I wanted to get more engagement from the players at that time. I carried that philosophy and belief through to when I started coaching children years later.

“The one thing we want children to do is come back week after week, so at the very least, we need to create an environment where they want to do that and love what happens when they all come together. They have to become part of what that environment contains – it has to be about them.”

A key part of the FA’s DNA strategy led by technical director Dan Ashworth, Sturgess firmly believes that the experiences children have at an early age is fundamental to keeping them engaged and involved in sport and physical activity for life. Recalling conversation with Dan on how they could tap into this opportunity, he explained:

“The strategy was for the England senior teams and the development teams, but I remember telling Dan that we could start this with very young children and embed the same kind of capabilities in them. The level of trust that was given to me to do this was brilliant – it lit the blue touch paper really.

“The development of our young children is the most important thing that you can be involved in. I wanted to make sure that every child I encountered felt great about playing sport and being active, hopefully for a very long time.

Sturgess recalled a specific incident during a session that helped change his approach to coaching towards a more child-first one:

“I had a young boy at a session about ten years ago and he tugged at my shirt and said to me ‘Pete, this is boring’ - and I realised that I had never really thought of coaching enough through their eyes and their experience. I remember thinking my sessions were fully prepared, fully structured, but I hadn’t fully looked at it through the eyes of a child. It shook me and I realised that my coaching had to look different.”

“It all then became about developing a connection to the children and to do that you have to listen to them. You have to bring them into the session, so it is seen as their session and not something that is done to them. That really helped me hone an approach that I knew that would work.”

Sturgess wants to encourage what he calls a ‘play pandemic’. As part of the Play Their Way campaign, his approach has been recognised for ensuring children’s input into coaching is heard and helps shape the way they are taught.

“Play is the most important part of coaching for me but it’s difficult to communicate to coaches sometimes. We have to tap into the power of play because it’s a huge development and learning tool for children. The role of the coach changes a bit, so they have to adopt a slightly different role. You have to allow a lot of time for the children to explore and experiment to work out the best solutions for the problems that you weaved into the session.

“We’ve now come to the realisation that children learn more through play. If we spend time manipulating slightly what that play looks like, the kids get all the returns from play and football and the coach get benefits in terms of tactical understanding, collaboration and team work even at a young age.”

To find out more about Play Their Way and download a range of resources including support for coaches working with girls, visit www.playtheirway.org.

Pete's top child-first coaching tips:

• Make coaching a partnership between you and the children you coach. Learn from them and learn together.
• Make sure you act on ideas put forward by children in a session but take the time to explain why any ideas aren’t suitable.
• Use the power of play – that’s how children learn best.