Concentrate on grassroots By Jim White

Take a stroll down to your local park today, and you will immediately see what is wrong with English football. In the games being played there, you will see why an Italian is managing the England national team, why fewer than 30 per cent of the players starting in Premier League games this weekend are English, why Goal of the Month is dominated by Portuguese, Spaniards and Brazilians.

What you will see is lots of adults standing on the touchline of a small football pitch shouting at their eight-year-old children. One of the adults may be dressed in a tracksuit, with initials embroidered on his chest. He will be shouting the loudest, most often the instruction "get stuck in" occasionally varied with "just clear it".

Have fun: Trevor Brooking wants under-eights to enjoy the game At some point there may be a confrontation between several of the parents, following a disputed goal. If, for instance, you are watching a game in Devon things might conclude, as they recently did, with one of the watching fathers becoming so irate that he marched off, only to return at the wheel of his 4?x?4 - which he proceeded to park in the middle of the pitch, refusing to move until the referee changed his decision. What you are unlikely to see is any of the small children concerned having much in the way of fun.

You may wonder why a bunch of youngsters being shouted at as they kick a ball around has anything to do with, for instance, England's failure to qualify for Euro 2008. Sir Trevor Brooking, the Football Association's technical director, is convinced the two are inextricably linked. "There is no question if the grassroots are not generating the enthusiasts, the fans, the referees, the administrators and above all the players, then the top end is going to suffer," he says. "And for me, it all begins in that crucial five-to-11 age band."

Brooking believes the country's skills deficit is largely a function of how we coach small children. The prevailing conditions are amateurish, haphazard and ill-qualified, and everything is conducted in an atmosphere that is over-wrought and suffocating. That, he says, must change. "From our research, it is clear that the pressure from the sideline is the number one problem, followed by the lack of respect for referees, it was taking the fun out of it. "Just saying: 'look you've got to behave better on the touchline' isn't going to work. We have to find a way to embarrass the individuals who are jeopardizing our game.

"We have to invest some money into pushing the message out there. We have to give the right-minded people in kids' football the back-up that when there is a loud-mouth, they have our support to challenge them." To that end, a pilot scheme is being rolled out this weekend in five regions which will involve the roping off of playing pitches (to keep parents at least two yards back from the touchline) and a system borrowed from rugby, whereby only the captain is allowed to talk to a referee. If the scheme works, these two initiatives will be enforced from next season. But, more fundamentally, Brooking knows it is a matter of education. Particularly for coaches.

"You could say the FA were at fault here, because in years gone by we have just qualified people to coach everyone, from 10-year-olds or 40-year-olds," he admits. "But the sensitivity to youngsters is different. We are going to offer courses which are age-specific, so if you as a dad are running your lad's under-eights, you can come along and learn how to do that. The principal thing is, it must be enjoyable. We're calling the programme the FUNdamentals."

We have never concentrated resources on the entry level of the game. This, Brooking believes, is partly a structural issue. "The professional clubs don't get involved until kids reach nine," he says. "So if you are a good coach, and you want a job, you're not going to be working at that level. The trouble is, resources in the professional game are directed exclusively at the short-term. It's hard to say to a club board, 'look, give us the money for a grassroots coach for five-year-olds' when they might be relegated this year. So we realized we just had to fill that gap."  The first move was to recruit 66 coaches, working in 12 regions, whose job is simply to engage with junior players. Brooking would like to see coaches like these available across the country. Perhaps they could be based in the new specialist sports academies, maybe attached to professional clubs. The idea is they would offer coaching and support to grassroots organizations, constantly preaching the mantra of enjoyment. The message is: stop shouting, and let the children have fun.

"If you can take a lad at six who is not very good and, through coaching, enable him by the time he is 11 to be OK, he will stay in the game," Brooking says. "At the moment, we're losing too many because we're battering them, teaching them the wrong way between five and 11."

The right way, he believes, is the one espoused at the Manchester United Academy. This involves lots of ball-work and small-sided games, with emphasis on skills development not short-term league position. "The Man United philosophy is let them discover it for themselves," he says. "The old vision of the coach shouting do this, do that, has gone there. Kids don't do informal kick-arounds any more. Parents prefer their children to be in a structured environment. The trouble is, as long as you have a structure in place, the adult feels they have to get involved to justify their presence. What they have realised at United is that the best coaching for youngsters is about standing back."

For Brooking, what goes on in your local park and what happens at United's academy should be joined at the hip. "You have to start it at the grassroots, if you get better coaches at the start, then the academies will be taking on better-prepared youngsters, who will become better trainees, get into the first team on merit and then on to England. I'd like to see the professional clubs recognise this and become far more involved in their community, coaching."

Besides, he says, getting it right at the start has much wider implications than simply creating a production line of talent. "The sad fact is, physical co-ordination levels in this country are falling all the time. Over half of youngsters emerging from primary school at 11 are physically illiterate. They are struggling to enjoy any physical activity. It is that serious. We have a huge responsibility here."

For all our futures, the FA cannot afford to get it wrong.