Modern Soccer Coach Podcast
Developing the Self-Managing Player with Michael Hamilton
Gary is joined by jAFC Wimbledon Academy Manager, Michael Hamilton to discuss player development and club culture. Michael is a forward thinking leader, who is passionate about empowering players to lead and constantly finding ways to make the journey more fulfilling for the player. As you learn in the interview, ideas are not enough for Michael. He believes that true culture is about action and implementation. This is an inspiring inside look at how an ambitious development program can take a different path and earn a great reputation along the way.
You can watch Michael's presentation from 2020 here: https://www.modernsoccercoach.com/post/developing-the-self-managing-player-with-michael-hamilton
- Duration:
- 1h 12m
- Broadcast on:
- 02 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
this is what I said, "Do you know it's what all our boys were wearing today?" And I said, "All our boys wear black boots." I said, "Okay." I said, "Why do you do that?" I said, "Because they're not professional footballers here." If we're going to give all these boys these tools, what is the biggest test and challenge we can give them? Well surely it must be putting them in a game where we remove our self and we let them manage in terms of play-a-led games. Now play-a-led games is the method that you referenced earlier where we send boys to games with no coaches and they manage themselves and self-regulate. When I believe by not being unique, by not being different and not molding your program around the needs of the play-a, then we're failing them. Hello, coaches. Welcome back. Massive interview today. Join us is Michael Hamilton, AFC Wimbledon Academy Manager. We've had him on four years ago in lockdown. He was one of the best presentations. I'll put the link below for you to check that out. Hey, I recommend it. There's tons of ideas around developing the self-managing player, but not just ideas as you're going to find out in this interview. Tons of passion around risk-taking as a coach, creativity as a coach and how to put it into action as well. Outstanding work from Michael. Hope you enjoy. Before we start, please like. Please subscribe. Thank you so much for all your support. Here's Michael. Enjoy. Michael, thanks so much for coming back on. Gary, thank you for having me on this. Yeah, much appreciated. I'm looking forward to it. Well, first off, we can't believe that it was four and a half years ago that you came on done the presentation. I'm going to put a link to the presentation below for the coaches to kind of follow up on that because it's still the best presentation I've seen where everyone's looking at context over here and given players responsibility and you outlined, I don't know how many ways that you can add to it. And one of the things that I remember specifically about the presentation is the piece of kids taking more of a lead role at post games and putting them kind of outside their comfort zone in the context of the game and putting character development and leadership at the forefront of what you're doing with player development. And again, it really, really inspired a lot of thinking on my end. And I've got a lot of feedback from coaches over the years about their presentation as well. So let's start there. Let's say like, OK, that was four and a half years ago and some of the players, I'm sure you probably remember a few of them in those presentation. I mean, how is that how is that work kind of taken from there and what success have you seen as those kids have come through the pathway? Yes. So we've got four values. And when you're managing players, staff, parents, you know, an organization, it's very easy to get lost in, you know, what your long term objectives are. So we've got four values that kind of set the foundation for everything we do. And I'm not saying everything fits within this, but we do check ourselves and go, like, does this contravene or support where we want to get to? So our four values are memories. We want to make sure whether a boy's with us for one year or for 10 years, Wimbledon and his time with us, he's seen us amongst the best time of his life. And we have a bigger, we have a bigger purpose than just trying to produce footballers. We have, you know, we want to make sure people leave us as Wimbledon fans hardworking, which I think is probably on every document in every club around the world. But we try and live and breathe as much as possible because the history of this club demand it. So managing is the one you're referring to, which is we feel every player that, oh, I say play, I say every successful person, whether it's sports person, business person, or within the football context. They self manage their own progress and their own development and the idea behind it is if you do what you need to do and more to get and maximize your potential and you bring that to the table, or we have to do a structure and try and take you to the next level. And if you're only performing and behaving when you're in and around us, then it's probably not going to get you to where you want to get to because, you know, the numbers just don't allow it. And the full value is attachment now our history as a club is quite unique, you know, and every club's history is unique, but having a fan or a model, having a club that was, you know, in South West London, taken away, reestablished, it's unique to us and making sure boys are attached to the past, recognizing the present and also wanting to be the club's future is massive for us. Our four values, memories, hard work, attachment and self managing, and the self managing one like you said, we kind of unpicked it before, and it's kind of evolved since then. But we thought it's had massive benefits, not just in terms of a player development, but also a holistic development. And we've had massive buying from coaches, from parents, and it is something we're known for. And in a very competitive part of the world, which we operate in, we needed something to be quite unique to us, and we felt having a unique development model would make us stand out. And it's not being unique for unique sake, because we actually do feel it has a value. But you come down to us and literally across the bush, you've got Fulham, football club, about 10 miles up the road, you've got Chelsea, you know, we're in such a competitive part of the world. And you know, we know what we can't compete with, but we also know where we can stand out. And we just feel this model makes us stand out for the right reasons. And it lays the foundations for some of the successes we've had in the past, and you know, why we want to get to the future. Yeah, the noise of football, which I've shared Lindsay on and I've asked him about the noise of operating, you know, long-term lens around London and the dynamics. And I don't think we appreciate in America how competitive London football would be with X amount of clubs, and sometimes we see it here, where the noise can lead you down the shortcuts or even, I would say, even dropping your standards and not even knowing that there. So I guess with that mind, like memory is hardworking, self-management, attachment, those are very, very strong, powerful principles. How do you then keep staff aligned with that when there is so much noise locally with that? Yeah, that's quite difficult, especially when you're losing staff, you know? So we've had a lot of success in the last four and a half years with staff moving on from us onto other bigger clubs, which highlights, you know, we've got a strong development model here. But when we recruit and reappoint staff, our onboarding is massive, our inductions, and us really saying, look, this is who we are, we're a little bit different, but you're not going to get X with us, but you will get Y, and whilst you're with us, again, whether you're with us for 12 months or three, four, five years, when you're with us, we have to live and breathe these values. So our onboarding is massive. Me from a managerial perspective, I sit down with department managers every six to eight weeks and just make sure that the departments and the individuals are performing in line with targets and objectives that we set out, and, you know, some of these measures that we just mentioned are referred to and off the back of these meetings naturally, you know, they have to make sure that the staff that they manage our onboarding in line, and it's not easy, but it's something we don't negotiate on, and I'll give you a couple of examples. So we paid a Premier League club, a club that finished in the top four in the Premier League last season, just as a reference, and we beat them to one, and I knew some of the staff members that were working for this other club, and they came over to me, and they said, "Oh, Michael, you know, we noticed your boys run a little bit further or a little bit harder than us, and your noise levels were X," and, you know, they just started picking a part of performance, and they said, "Well, how did you do it?" But as they were talking to me, they were out collecting the balls that had gone in the bush and around the pitch, and I said, "Well, look at what you're doing now," and he was like, "They didn't get it first," I said, "Well, look," I said, "This just wouldn't get the acceptable in our environment," and I said, "Look, you're getting the balls," I said, "So you are straight away telling the boys that it's okay to leave behind your equipment and look at the crafty environment, because we will do it for you," and I said, "This just wouldn't happen for us, you know, where are we operating in all our training pitches, we've got bushes around them, you know, and if a ball goes in the bush, you've got to go in there and go and get it out." Now, I know that seems a little bit risky, but if you go back to, you know, the street mentality and foot all back out on the streets and other bits and pieces, that's what they will do, you know, balls will go on the cars and you climb on the cars, and it's those like unique raw touch points that are massive to us, another thing that we had, and I asked them, "This is what I said, do you know it's what all our boys were wearing today?" And I said, "All our boys wear black boots," I said, "Okay," and I said, "Why do you do that?" I said, "Because they're not professional footballers yet," you know, and we see pink, yellow, white boots as all placebos, that of course, everyone has stars that you look up to, you know, your harlins, your sacklets, your salads, and of course, if you do the hard work, hopefully you will get there, but you aren't there, you know, you're developing and you're working towards that, and all these, you know, there are certain parts of our program that are non-negotiable, there are certain parts that can be flexible when we're doing negotiate on, so one going under our self-managing value, we make sure every age group hit X amount of games per season in terms of player-led games, now player-led games is the method that you referenced earlier, where we send boys to games with no coaches, and they manage themselves and self-regulate. The foundation phase age groups, so in the academy setting up being in our setting, that's nice to 11s, they have to do a self-managing player-led game once every six weeks. The frequency of games can be negotiated, so we've done it before where we are when we first set up this principle, every age group had to do six games per season, but we found out that with the older boys, six games per season probably didn't suit where they were at, and what I mean by that is obviously they're playing competitions, they've got leagues, some of them are playing professional contracts and scholarships and stuff, and if you've recruited late as an example, you've got a boy that's just come from another club, you know, throwing these methods on him at a time which is quite sensitive to him can be quite, it might not maximize his purpose, so we visited that and we looked at the frequency at what age groups and what teams need to hit over course of a season, so there is flexibility within the strategy, but in terms of a foundation, those four values, like I said, they underpin everything. Yeah, they'll be about 50 coaches nearly crashed their cars listening to this when they heard the players go into games with no coaches, I actually didn't know that self-managing player-led games, is that zero coach? Yeah, so self-managing is where we want to get to, right, and it's messy, it's chaotic, but by the end of our program, we want Michael Hamilton to have gone through the Wimbledon program and when he goes into a first-time environment and he's in there with players that play two, three, four hundred games and he's in there with a manager who, I don't know, he's just coming in and he jobs on the line, we want him to block out all the noise and be able to manage where he's at and make sure he gets the most out of that day, that week, that situation, so if a manager comes in, just, I'm just throwing these scenarios up and doesn't talk to him because he focuses on X, block out all that, what do you need to do, why do you need to do it and go and do it, so just manage yourself. In trying to achieve that self-managing objective, we have different methods towards that, and one being player-led games, so yeah, we send, I'll have to go back a few years to let you know where it comes from, so it comes from Mark Robinson, the current bird and album manager and last season he was the Chelsea under 23 manager, previous to that he was AFC one with an under 18's manager and he transitioned to first-day manager a few seasons ago, but he was the first one that came up with the idea and it's kind of evolved from then, which is if we're going to give all these boys these tools, what is the biggest test and challenge we can give them, well surely it must be putting them in a game where we remove our soft and we let them manage, so naturally we sat down, you know, we risk managed it, you know, what if this happened, what if they were in 5-0 and they'd come out of egos, what if they lose 6-7, you got to go and explain it to the first-day manager, you know, so we looked at it all and thought no, if you're going to stand for something you've got to stand for it, so that was about 5-6 years ago and the first game that took place, the boys went two-and-a-down, we got it on recording so we filmed before during and after and the boys went two-and-a-down, the boys changed shape during the game, they made their own selves and they end up doing two-and-a-down, the result is obviously positive and that little example there is obviously that makes it all more powerful but it's not about the result, it's about arming the boys with the tools to believe in themselves, to bring all the information and the philosophies and whatever you want to call it together so that when it comes to performing, the boys have got the bag of tools to go into and go right we've got this and it initially started with the under-18s, like I said, we started to trigger it down, we got down to under-16s and about, I said about four years ago and now Mark had gone into the first team, we said right if we're going to do this, we're going to do this and we've got a lot of resistance from developers, practitioners, not sure about this, you can't do it yet but what if that and what if that and we're like you know what, I'm not being rude, if we stand for it, we believe in it, we could justify it, we're going to do it and we've got to the stage where every age group in our program at some point, like I said, they go and self-manage and you hear a lot of people talk about, you know, where are the leaders of today, you know, so you've got leaders of the past, John Terry, Rhea Ferdinand, Steve and Joe, I'll just name a few and everyone talks about the problem that we have in 2024 which is, you know, players or kids spend more time on phones and their world looks different to what it did years ago, they spend less time playing out and stuff like that. Okay, so if that's the problem then we need to find a solution, we can't, we can't, we can't motivate about that and this is just one of the things we do to try and achieve our self-managing aspect. Along the way, there are other experiences and methods that they experience, so another would be, you might have silent quarters, so if you've got an under-h team as an example, the staff will be around but for two of the four quarters in a game, we might stay silent and give the boys the responsibility to lead and manage, we do play a design session, so there'll be certain sessions throughout their program that they lead on and that they design and building up to that, they will sit down with coaches and analysis and look at what they want to deliver as a session and why and how is it relevant and at some point, you know, end of the week or at the end of the schedule, they will go and deliver their own session. But a point of it is, is we truly believe that we've seen massive benefits in boys not only stepping up to the play and building some of the attributes that we want to see, so communication, leadership, teamwork and other bits but we also feel that we get more out of players once they know they're contributing towards their own development and it's not us and you, it's a collaboration and we're all in this together and I always say this, you know, as a Cali Manager, we know what we can't give you, you know, we know what we can give you but I can promise you now, what you've got is staff and a program that will try and give you the best at what we can, you know, and what your job is as a player from the moment you walk through the door is to almost use us, maximize what you've got around us, you know, be the busiest person with analysis and make sure, you know, if you're not playing and someone's playing in front of you, make sure you understand what that coach is seeing in that player that he's not seeing in you and how that affects your development and the point I'm getting at is whilst you're with us, you have to really drain the resources around you to make sure you leave no stone unturned and again, you self-manage your own development and at the end of it, you might be good enough, there's no guarantee this will work but you might be good enough and if, if for some reason, you know, unfortunately you're not good enough, then hopefully we've equipped you with a tool to go and succeed in business, in education, in the outside world because those attributes will get you far in any walk of life. Brilliant, brilliant. Oh, there's a lot to unpack there. Before we started recording, we were just having a general chat and you talked about culture, culture is actions and then that's what jumps out to me there but even the process of having actionable conversations with the staff about how to actually, you know, you've, I'm sure, maybe you've seen just as much as I have about stuff on walls which can be branding and look really, really good but we're all kind of then delivering the same thing, it's not really what it says, so can you go back to that process of the idea of how to make it actionable and then the discussion with the staff, I mean, how much is, how's that facilitated, how much of that is happening? Yeah, so I, the way I say is, it's your what, your why and your how and the how bit is the action, so your what is, what are we going to do and why we're going to do it and they get, you know, I think every club's different and it should be different, every organization is different but what do we want to achieve, right? We want to be a unique development model, why? Because it makes us stand up for my competitors, we know what we haven't got but we know what we can provide. We want to be seen as the best cat-free program in the country, why? Because if we're over performing other cat-free and trying to get within touching distance with the other categories, then we're going to be in the good place. Once we've established our what's and our why's, it's okay, that's the easy bit, it's the house and that's the actions, how are we going to do this, how are we going to do this, okay, what's next? So from a structural perspective, like I've already managed directly about nine or ten different department heads and underneath them, they've got multiples. When I first became a cat-free manager, I was probably guilty, all that, everyone was trying to manage everyone and everyone needs me and you know, I need to get around here and if I don't see them, I feel bad, I've got to get around them and I thought, no, what am I doing? Because now I'm trying to do a lot of everything can actually have a minimal impact. So let me be strong and directional, I want to say directional, I mean like with clarity with my department heads, I set the what and the why. At the beginning of the season, they told me how they're going to do it. So they actually set their own department targets that align with our vision and our mission and that can be flexible as well, but again, that goes into self-managing and making sure we're as management and living and breathing some of them have to do honestly with the players. So they set their own department targets, I say, and then they also let me know with my support, how they're going to support and manage their staff. And then once that bit set, they then do the difficulty, which is manage and lead staff. Like I said, I sit down with myself at six to eight weeks, they sit down with their staff at different frequencies, and you know, I don't think there's anything from saying this, if you've got a higher performing staff member who gets it, maybe my touch point with them might be just two, three times a season, you know, in terms of a formal perspective, informally, it'll be a lot more, but from a formal perspective, right, three, four times a season, I'm going to touch point with them and make sure, you know, we're on the right line. And they might be someone else who would just recruit from another club, got high potential, but you know, doesn't quite understand it yet. So there may be my touch point where there might be once every two, three weeks, and it's having flexibility. And what you find is that everyone's needs are different, but we're all in the same bus. And it's important everyone knows that. So yes, I might see you less, but don't take that as a disrespect, actually take that as a sign of respect. And I might see you more, but don't take that as anything other than I want to invest in into you because you've got a massive part to play. And as that's happening, you know, I support my staff in trying to deliver that. So it's not necessarily, I just manage my 9 or 10 staff directly and lead them to the rest. No, of course they can ring me, contact me, meet me, whatever you want to call it, whenever they need to. But the formal meetings are there to set direction and action. And then, you know, naturally, next time you meet, we review the actions, we reset them. Is what we set before? Is it relevant? It was what we set before? Was it achieved? If not, do we need to reset it? Was it was was a challenge too high? Is it still relevant? You know, you are pick it. And I think my job is to manage the medium and long term. I'm not saying it's easy, but I can't really be involved in the short term minor stuff. That's for other people and as their responsibilities. But my job is also to make sure, you know, we're always trying to move forward. We're always thinking about what next. So even now, you know, I know 24, 25 seasons, just about to start. But I've got one eye on 25, 26 seasons, because trust me, soon or not, that's, you know, that's going to be around. And our world is so competitive. So some of the clubs that we mentioned before that are on our doorsteps, you know, you've got Brentford Academy that's restarted. That's a new challenge you've got working wonders who are going to come into the program in the next 12 to 80 months. That's going to be a new challenge. So if I get, if I get mixed up and consumed in the smaller stuff, we will get caught up, if that makes sense. And I'm not saying it's easy, by the way, it's just, it's just the way that I have found work for us. And like I said, everyone within that is differently. It is different. And they need to manage differently. And that's not a negative. Hello, coaches. We'll take a quick break here. I really, really appreciate all the support with all the modern soccer coach content. As we promised a few months ago, with the support increasing, we're going to keep trying to add on little bits and pieces of modern soccer coach websites, we've got tactical analysis articles. We're about to release one more coaching resource in the next couple of weeks. We've also got our online course, which is now in full flow where we've added webinars. So if you enjoy the tactical side of modern soccer coach analysis, and you want to join us for again, an understanding of the analysis piece and some bonus webinars where you can come on and discuss or ask questions and get involved in the community, please, please head on over to modernsachercoach.com/analysis. It's got the online course. And then like I said, we've got the coaching community alongside it where we'll bring on special guests and we'll do some regular content. So if you want to get involved and you want to participate, please head on over modernsachercoach.com/analysis. I'll put the link below as well. Really, really appreciate all your support. Thank you so much. Back to Michael. The unique part, I want to go back to that there, as one of your objectives or one of your goals, being unique in the development space, and that's something that I actually think deep down a lot, that inspires a lot of coaches. They want to be different, but then the noise of winning games. So a lot of people will say, well, I would love to do that, but that's difficult and that's difficult. But going back to, you know, I see a lot of bravery in being unique and you would have to take a lot of flack for some of these decisions. So I know going against the tight bounds really cool and trendy, but it's not as easy as that to talk about how you can deal with not criticism, but definitely push back a resistance for some innovation. Or do you? No, if I'm honest, we get quite a lot of respect in the development space. About four or five months ago, I was asked to present an FA course and I was presenting a course with Ziai Jodei. I'm not too sure if you're familiar with him, but he's an interesting person. Yeah, yeah, excellent. Yeah. And you know, we got into conversation. He asked me, you know, what I was presenting on, and I started like talking about himself managing stuff. And he was kind of like, he was so intrigued and interested in it. And obviously the FA are interested in it. They asked me to present on this award. And what you get, you get a lot of people coming, and I'm talking about some of the best practitioners in the country from Newcastle, Man City, Arsenal, all the way down to, you know, late in Oregon and Wimbledon, you know, so you get a whole spectrum and you get everyone going there going, I love what you do, I respect it. And I'm intrigued. But it's the next bit that people I think are fearful of is actually doing it. Now I do understand, you know, I sit at the top of the Academy for you to say that, you know, so I have to manage up. But in terms of the program, I oversee it. So I mean, I'm in quite a unique space. If you're not in my position in a setting, and you want to deliver an action, a unique program, I understand you might have people to answer to. And I've obviously not got that situation. So I do understand my situation is quite unique. But what I suppose what I'm getting at is if you feel it's right, and you can justify it, then what is stopping you? Because if you look at the word developing and teaching, coaching, whatever you're going to call it, our job is to stretch, to challenge, and to take plays into the unknown. When I say that could be any subject, but it's to stretch them beyond their beliefs and to maximize their potential. And I believe by not being unique and just by doing the same thing and taking all the boxes, by not being different and not molding your program around the needs of the player, then we're failing them then to degree. And I've got so many examples on my phone, I've probably sent you some after of players at the top top level, talking about managing situations or or smelling something in the game. So and the two videos that I've got, John Stone's got a video of John Stone's about the Pep Gordo earlier in the game. And he's obviously seen a way that the team that they're up against is defending. And he's talking about different methods of trying to break down this block. And because he's the one that's playing the game, right? Pep structured it. Pep's a bit of plan out, but plans change. And you've got John Stone's managing a situation in game. And the other one is Lalana, they're playing Liverpool. And obviously, as you know, Liverpool are highly aggressive in their press and you know, they work hard. And Lalana has noticed a change that is needed in Brighton's build-up because Liverpool changed the way they press. And he's gone over to Deserby and Deserby's got like, gave him the thumbs up and they've changed it. And I don't know what the result was. But the point I'm getting at is these, this is visible in the top game. You know, this happens. And you know, especially when you get to the Euros and you've got England versus Spain example, and we always talk about why we fall short as a nation and our players are technically as good. And we matched them in these areas, but why do we fall short? We're obviously not getting something right. And whether it's decision-making, whether that's some problem solving, if you feel it's right, if you feel it's going to take place to where they need to get to, which I think is important, then what's stopping us. And yeah, I find a lot of the industry and a lot of practitioners are kind of scared that they are known. And you'll be surprised at the questions and the admiration and the respect I get when I present our methods to people. They're like, wow, this is amazing. Tell me more. But very few people do anything to buy it. And that's what I find quite unique. Wow. I mean, that's almost society, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of people nodding to that there and saying, oh, that's exactly how I feel. But that's where you're going back to cultures and actions, even as a coach, that's where risk taken, forward thinking, you know, almost that, you know, we're armed today with more information, the ability to get this information to people and see people doing innovative things. But then there's almost a handbrake on today, where if you do something different, you're judged or, you know, you feel as if you go step back in your career, because the results may not pick up. But I'm guessing like the level of fulfillment and the level of like stepping outside your comfort zone. I almost feel as if we should promote more of that in coaching community, because you know, talk about robots as players, but what are we going to look like all doing the same thing in 20 years as a coaching community? I agree. And the funny thing is when you actually take a step back, the coaches that we revere and love, obvious takers, they do step outside the comfort zone. You know, how many people do, how many times have picked out a team and everyone's gone, oh, he's gone with a false nine again, always gone. Why's he doing that? He's overcomplicating it. Come the end of the season, we'll say he's the best step of because he's won everything, you know, and I'll tell you at the moment, it's getting a bit of flat because he's quite, he's quite unique in some of his methods. But the progression and the upgrade that I've had in so many different areas is there to all be seen, you know, so there's a pattern in success. And I think the pattern's there. And I know some people go, what do I look like? Can I do it? Should I not? Well, it's happening in front of us. It's just whether or not people want to do it. Yeah, I was listening to a podcast, a bit of a joke, got an open-gore podcast with my giddy and he's talking. It's really, really interesting. Like it starts just above chat, you know, voice sitting around chatting and he starts talking about science. And he's talking about lockdown, about how he got to training. And they cut the prehab. His pet peeve was prehab. They cut the prehab. And they cut the prehab because of the distance. And so you just went entry and went home. And he said, I wonder, will there be more injuries now that we do this here? And of course, it doesn't really correlate at all. And it blew his mind that they overlooked that. But when I think about innovation and we're risk of change, but then we're doing things that we're still not questioning in environments that they're actually working at all. So like, there's space to chip away at this stuff, surely. Yeah, there is. And I'm an Arsenal fan. So our Tetar and some of his methods are finding true again. And, you know, you get people from the call to that, you know, they do question, why is he doing that? And, you know, you know, they're trying to interview a lot. But the fact is when you're going to some of the most successful, innovative companies in the world, Google and others, the moment you walk through their doors, they have challenges or I don't want to call it quizzes, but they have something to get you engaged because they need you to be stimulated. And they need to tap into that part of your brain for you to be your best today. But sport is no different. You know, it's especially football where, you know, you've got to find solutions, you've got, you've got to be creative. It's those innovative ones that go for the most money and are usually the ones that unlock the door. And it's that bit that you're trying to tap into it. Again, it's psychology, isn't it? It's science. And you're right. We tend to do things for the sake of doing it and don't ask ourselves why we're doing it and what the value of it is, but because we've always done it, we should do it. And we don't look at what we're trying to achieve and what it is we should be doing. And this, I'm not saying from a room with a perspective, you always get it right. But going back to the point, I think you get a lot of coaches who look at some of the best coaches in the world who are risk takers and you know, there's patterns in their success that we're looking at. You look at all the best teams in the world and the best players and there's patterns there. But when it comes to us actioning and delivering, we don't do what we see and we don't do what we actually want to be doing. And I suppose that is a challenge to any developer out there. And it's not just football. We've got a bigger responsibility than just to try and make them footballers. Of course, you know, ultimately get a maximum return investment to the academy and produce footballers and get that. But we also need to educate and develop the boys as much as we can. And like I said, a lot of these tools are transferable. So the actionable piece, not to stay on this for too long, but it made me, I was, I listened to the diary of CEO and he had a Netflix, actually two guests in a row. I listened to it. One was the guy that had a Netflix. This guy had had the thing done in 1997 that the video industry was going to was at risk and it wasn't really at risk for not 10 years. He was just so far ahead of it. But it asked him, of course, what would be your advice be for people today? And his advice was to stop doing business plans and start doing little things that feel and more actions and less theory. And then I think, again, I try to relate that to football. And I think not that there's plans all over the place, but there's definitely people's theory of how they view things. And they won't go and take any innovation in our organisation generally until the risk is minimal and it's been tested and all out there. But to roll it out at an academy is fairly, fairly difficult. Is that something that when you're looking at the recruitment of people, is that something that you can see in them? Or is that something you're looking for? Yeah, so you just triggered me. So in terms of the recruitment side, yes. So I'll give you an example. And I need to highlight some of the all the methods that we're talking about and some of the successes we've done have had that is down to people, right? And that's some very influential people over the last few years I've made and bought this to life. So myself and Jack Matthews, academy, academy head of coaching, we recently went through a recruitment process for some staff to, yeah, to recruit for certain roles. And this person, he presented really well, really, really well. And he said, in my session, you're going to see ABC. Then he did a new session and we could see there was potential there, but we never saw what we said we were going to see. So we sat down with him and we constructively gave him feedback and we just said, look, we thought we saw this. This was really good. However, these four or five things we never saw. And we said, right, we want you to come back next week and deliver again. And I think it was a bit surprised because I think that that's the you want a yes or a no. And I said, well, if you say yes or no, it's a no, no, right? But it's not a no because you have potential. I know you've got potential because your presentation is one of the best I've seen. But I want you to come back in and deliver and these are the things we never saw. And he asked me after he said, well, why did you do that? That's quite unique. I said, because the only way we're going to move forward as a program is if we if we action ourselves and review our actions and then we plan and go again. And I said, we asked, you know, every Saturday, Sunday, our players play a game and we win, we lose, we perform well, perform bad, but we reviewed them, we set them targets again and we go again next week. I said, whether we have to be the same as staff, that is the only way we as an establishment as an organization is going to move forward. Because in the most beautiful way, you know, due to our limitations, we're not going to get the most experienced staff. You know, we don't pay the highest wages and I don't hide away from that. But what we do need is potential and people who want to come along with a journey with us. And again, when you're with us, you've got to make sure you're all in. And he found it quite, um, yeah, I think he was a little bit shocked because I think he thought he'd told him he never got the job. But we saw enough in him to go, no, you've got potential. Now, the big thing is when you come back and do your session, if we're not seeing progression, then, you know, we're probably not going to progress together. But if we see you've hit new points and new and you've hit the areas, then there's going to be other areas that have gone right. Now you've got that. Now we want to see this. And again, let's just forward progression. Um, yeah, and to go back to your other point, you spoke about plans and business plans. I was quite fortunate. I was academy head of coaching and I suppose I see it unique in a sense. I've also got a daughter in the school. Um, and A triple P stipulates, you must have a curriculum. And when the first things I did as academy manager is I ripped up the curriculum because how can I told Gary what he needs to be doing in 10, 11 months time? How is that possible? If, if education and development is flexible and it's, it's up, it's down, it's stop, it's start. How can I, how will I know where you are? So we ripped up the curriculum and we set out a plane, how we want to play. This is how all our teams need to look like. We set out our player profiles and, you know, how from a, from a key point view, um, certain positioners need to hit certain criteria. But underneath that, the curriculum, the day to day, it's flexible. So I ripped it up and I said, right, what we're going to do is every six weeks, we're going to sit down and we're going to review individuals and teams. And then we're going to build the, the curriculum around that. When we first got all it, I had a lot of people going, Mike, you can't do that. You know, the orders are coming in and you're showing them like, you're showing them a 12 month curriculum. It's only two months completed. I said, that's fine. Because when they come back another two months, they'll be four months completed. And when they come back in two years time, we're going to have a year and a half worth of curriculum and another six months blank that we're writing. But the point I'm trying to get is if, if development, is, is, is flexible and up and down, then so does what we're delivering and programming them. Um, and we, we have it, you know, we, we have certain teams that we know they're probably going to have a successful season and they can be challenged at X and you know, we can, whoever they play, they're probably going to be. But then we have other teams, we've got to know what the potentials there, but they're off the path as an example, you know, um, the potentials there, but they're not quite hitting what we need to see, but, but they can. So let's build the program around that. So, um, yeah, I suppose that goes back to your planning, but is like you said, similar to what you said, actions, um, failure, successes, learning, go again. And yeah, like I said, if you sat down now without 2024, 25 season curriculums, you would see about four or five weeks of the curriculum written out beyond that, you know, come back to the number four or five weeks and you'll get the next six weeks, but you, you won't see a yearly curriculum with us because that's not how learning happens. No, and that's not how professional football works either. If you go into the reality of getting prepared people for the next level, there is going to be mentioned earlier about a new manager, there's going to be changed, there's going to be adopt, adoptions in that there and, and sometimes I look at coach education and where my head goes with a lot, all of this conversation is how can we teach or get, you know, at scale people to think like this or are to be open to doing things like this here. And I just think, well, if coach education puts together, which it's made great advancements, I always say this on the podcast, it's never a knock on it, but is it does it prioritize planning over action? That's what I would ask because, especially with science and, and periodization, I mean, you can't present that without having the people in front of you. And there's also going to be a transition of people developing at different rates as well. So I guess, do you feel that the English FA in their, in their education is more open to like, okay, well, we're more adaptable with the flex because it's made great strides as well. No, I think they're very open. I'll be honest, not necessarily just think about this and think like this, because I think you get a lot of people that do, but go and action it. Yeah, and, you know, I've sat down with numerous youth developers and, you know, cutting managers at other clubs and stuff. And everyone does things differently. And it's, it's not all right. We're wrong. I need to, you know, I'm not, we're all trying to achieve the right same thing, but there's multiple ways of doing it. Should I play 4, 4, 2, 4, 3, 3, 3, 5, 2? Well, that's why we love the game, right? But a point I'm getting at is, yeah, people are, people are scared to be a little bit different. They're scared to step outside the comfort zone. And they do things they've always done because it's always been done, but it doesn't necessarily hit and maximize the potential of, of people. When I say people, don't just be in players are doing mean coaches and staff as well. Because some of the methods of a coach has come to me with over the last 12, 18 months, you know, they inspire me and they may not get in the staff and the players to color it in, you know, I think magic happens. Yeah, it's, it's fast and fast and your parents structure is different, obviously than ours. How do you have that environment and culture? And then how do you, is there is an education piece on the parents or is there a, do you just go with it and, and let them adapt or how does that process work? Yeah, the way I see it, if you pick the player in the middle, and he's the most important person, whoever surrounds him, they need to buy into it. So keeping the parents at arms length isn't of benefit to anyone, because ultimately it's the player that's going to suffer. You know, if we do X and then the player gets in the car and the parents going, well, why don't I see this and why aren't you doing that? Then there's no collaboration. So we feel bringing the parents closer and educating them is only going to benefit the player. Now don't get me wrong, you do get some parents who go, no, that's not how football played. This is how it's played. You see what you need to do. And you try and work with them and, you know, we've had, we've had one or two tricky parents, you know, and you have a series of meetings and touch points and stuff. And then there has to, what you hope, and maybe it's different in our settings, what I hope in our world is the boys get to an age 13, 14, 15, where they become so self-managing that they're like, "Mom, dad, shush, I've got this. You don't know what you're talking about." And they understand that they need to block out their parents and need to be zoned in. Or if that doesn't happen, if we feel a player's progression isn't being maximized because outside interferences, if it affects performances, then at some point we have to have the conversation go right, this just isn't working. You know, it might be worth a few, but it's not working for us. The reason we don't overvalue the parent over the player is because ultimately it's the player that is in our program and it's their journey. But yeah, if you get outside the influences and it might just be parents to be fair, it might be ages of our staff who are saying the opposites to what we're saying and, you know, giving them different information, then at some point, yeah, we just tell them, "This just isn't working." You know, and it's just best that, you know, we are comfortable and confident enough in what we've done over the last few months, years, to try and make this work. It needs the tangibles that I can present to you. But it's just not working. So now, you know, shake hands and guard separate ways, especially if it affects on pitch performances because, yeah, no one benefits from that. But honestly, I was going to say, but if I'm honest, 98% of the parents, they're fully on board and they love it. And in fact, they probably lean on us for support, you know, are, you know, Mike. So and so is not doing this outside. You know, can you have a word of view, man, you know, can you, you know, let him know that it's not acceptable? And if that continues to happen, then the football would be impact, you know, so they work with us and, you know, they kind of see us as the voice that is louder than theirs in some aspects. And that's brilliant. But like I was saying, don't pick yourself in the middle, put the player in the middle, and then work from there. And because ultimately what we all want, and I think that's what our parents don't really know what they don't know, what we all want is little Johnny to get to where he wants to get to. And the only way that's going to happen is if you work together. Brilliant. The hard work and peace is something that you're obviously very big on one of your values. How deep and another is a change in UK academies where they're not cleaning the boots anymore. And it's not the, I mean, at one stage, I think it's Glenn Harlow was painting White Hard Lane or something. There's a story about that there. I mean, all these, all these, probably, probably too much, but then you look at it and you think, yeah, there was a, it was a camaraderie in it, and there was a humility in it as well and hard work. And I mean, do you, is it hard working from, is it the training session? Is it doing add-ons and stuff afterwards? Is it around the building? I mean, can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, so some of the methods that you said used to happen and don't happen as much anymore. If you come down to Wimbledon, they will happen. And I don't shy away from that. So we've got a classroom done at the training ground that needs redecorating. And the most recent discussions are, you know, well, the boys can do it. And it's not, it's not a punishment. I need to highlight it. It's not a punishment. And this isn't, you know, if you don't do this, well, no, but it's, this is our environment, you know, the poach will do it with you as well, because we're all together. So we do do that. Mark Robertson used to be massive, but at the end of the season, ahead of the new season, you obviously have like a clear up of the training ground, you know, you go around and, you know, you cut the bushes and make sure you think from a proper and the under 18 just to go down and help out with the volunteers and stuff like that. And if I'm honest, like, kind of like what we've been saying, but the parents absolutely love it. And they see the value in it. And it's not a punishment. We need to highlight. This isn't, this isn't, if you don't do this, this won't happen. This is, no, this is what we do here. And again, it's, it's culture. Hard work. We have a motto, winners do more. So if you ever come down to our games and you saw our boys running after a game, it's because we've probably won the game. And the point being is if you go, you probably know what it's like, you go, you go to training and you turn up play and it's our Michael, you're late, give me some laps. And it's like, hold on. So my, my punishment for being late is actually a reward because I'm now going to do five laps. The reason five laps or running is a reward is because if I'm going to run further, quicker, longer than you in a game, I'm going to outperform you. I mean, you know, we use go and go look and tear the reference point. So we have a motto at the Academy, which is winners do more. So it might be a little five aside. I'm just use, you might have a five aside in their training session. And the blues versus the reds and the blues win. The blues at some point will get more development, even if it's an extra 10 minutes in the gym, or it's a extra five minutes with a sports scientist, whether it may or might be, they get a little top up at some point for the reward of winning. And the point of that is that winning comes, I said it comes across winning is a privilege. Winning isn't easy. And if you can have a culture where everyone's trying to be everyone to try and get better, then you're always only going to go forward. So yeah, that's some stuff we do with hard work. We, we don't use the word like extras, that are, you know, going to your extras. It's not extras. It's going to do your development, go and do what you need to do. Because if Michael does five minutes extra a day and Gary doesn't, well, that's 35 minutes a week extra Michael's doing. That's, what's that? So that's an as I saw over an hour a month. You do that over a year. That's almost half a day. So Michael's doing half an extra day, just by doing five extra minutes a day. So, you know, we don't see it as actually we say, right, go and do what you need to do. And we're quite relentless in this approach. Of course, there are times and boys need to rest and recover. And, you know, but again, that looks differently. So your extra today is, it might be prehab, it might be stretches, it might be, you know, watching the game and analyzing whatever it may be. But the point we're trying to get to is there's millions of people trying to achieve the same result. And there's only thousands of people that can turn out at the end of a week on a Saturday and start in professional football in this country. So what are you going to do to make sure you're one of those numbers? Because the awards are so high and the awards are life-changing. But you've got to do what you've got to do to get there. And I'm not saying it's easy. And even then, again, I'll keep retraining, even then boys, once you do all this and this will accumulate over time, you might still not be good enough. But it's a habit, isn't it? If you're going out, work your colleague in a workplace or whatever it may be, then usually the results will follow. Yeah, there's an interview maybe think there of Alex Engelthorbe on the high performance where I think it's one of the first thing he says where there's a reality of professional football. And it's tough. And like you said, even if you do ABCD, the whole way up the alphabet, your body may break down or are you very a manager? That's not the boys players in. And there's so many different dynamics. But I think that's really, really important is the piece of understanding that you are building really, really effective habits. And also then, are you pretty upfront then with that communication that listen, hey, it's, it's still, you know, you're still wanting a million here, even when you do 16 and you're still in the game, you know? Yeah, no, we're very much, we're open and honest. We've done a parent's presentation a few weeks ago and I presented some of the boys that we'd actually released and that never made it here while going on and achieved elsewhere. And we see that as a sign of success. And especially when some of the habits that we've tried to engrain in the boys, you know, come to fruition in different areas. So yeah, we're massively honest about that. Yeah. And like I said, what we do, people use the word pressure, we don't use the word pressure. It's a privilege. It's a privilege to be signed at our professional academy. It's a privilege to receive professional coach and eczema at times a week and receive this expertise and play these games and, you know, these will top up. You've got to, like I said, use us and maximize it. And I also send boys out on loan. So I also manage the loan process for the boys that are on their first and second year pro contracts. And there's nothing more rewarding than when I'll get a text on Michael Leo today. Forget about performance, or anything like that, Michael Leo today, like around the place, he's excellent. He comes in, he shakes everyone's hand. At training, he's, you know, he's the front of the line. He collects all the equipment afterwards. He responds to the texts and the message. He just leads in every capacity. And that's before he even got to performance. And nine times out of 10, those habits will transfer to performance. And, you know, we, I do share these stories. But ultimately, it's down to, it's not me that benefits, it's the player that benefits, it's the person that benefits from these habits. And there are players who, it's not us trying to make a one-size-fits-all because there are some players who, you know, they don't quite believe in that. They don't try to quite do that. They see that as a chore, but they're talented. So their talent will get them further than others. And, you know, those are the spanners that, you know, what about someone? Something like, okay, yes, but there's context around that, you know, right being rude. If Lionel Messi wasn't brilliant and everything, he would still be better than most, right? That's something I can't control. But all I can say is there's a pattern here. I can give you some stats and some data to suggest that if you get these things right, you massively increase the chance of you succeeding. And if it's not with us, it might be of another club, which to us is still success. And we've got a few of those in the game at the moment. And it was not within football, it will be in life. But like I said, I'll go back to the parents. My experience with the parents is that they massively value and are appreciative of some of our methods because they probably don't suit and don't reflect what the boys get in the outside world in 2024, you know? It's not doing it for doing it, say we do it because we feel it has a benefit, we feel the results are there, and we feel long term the boys will be better for it. Yeah, and I think that's why this is probably going to resonate with so many people is because you do see it. I have an eight year old today and you manage screen time. Buddy loves it and you're thinking, yeah, in five years, social media, blah, blah, blah. I even find myself parenting as if he's walking on a pavement, sidewalk too close to the side of it. I get yourself back in. What am I doing? You're so, I don't know, trying to set the path for safety for the kid as a parent. So we're now over cautious as a generation. I believe myself included, but then it's like, how's he going to take a risk? If I won't even let him could walk in the middle of the sidewalk, you know, it's all these things I think of as it's why this stuff's really important. I agree and I've got a daughter and you know, you probably feel, oh, yeah, Michael's like, yeah, you do parent differently, you do. But I remember when I was younger, I don't know what it was like when you was like, go like, where I lived in a state and outside was a, like, a little mini football pitch. Well, we made it a football pitch. It wasn't a football pitch, but it was our Wembley, and we spent footballing it all day long. But come to summer holidays, you leave the house half nine, 10, 10, whenever your parents had enough of a year, get out. Sometimes you leave without even having breakfast, you go. And the only time you come back is when you're hungry and you, mom, yeah, you scuff it down your face, brand, you get back out. And, you know, I was doing all sorts that my parents don't know about. You know, we had a, we had a sports owner that was really being rebuilt. So Ed, like, I'm scaffolding and stuff like that. And, you know, you pay run outs and all sorts in it. And the only, the next time you come back in is when it's dinner time and you probably accumulate about 10, 12 hours outside on just one day. And you do that for six weeks for all summer holidays. But I put the amount of learning, the interactions, the development that was happening is so, you know, and you hear about it in the footballing context as well. And then if I bellows or shoot for whatever. Again, it goes probably, touches on the self-managing bit, doesn't it? Because when you're outside and playing football of your mates, you know, sometimes the games were, I don't, the best free versus the other seven, you know, and, or, or us two versus you fight like the, the players self-regulate themselves. But that's where the richness and the uniqueness, you know, that's where it stems from. And it's not us trying to replicate that. But you're right. I think sometimes we as parents, and I always say, I think our parents are excellent, and I can honestly say that I couldn't sit here and say, if I had a son that was in the academy setting, I could commit to an academy schedule, because it's demanding. It is really demanding. But yeah, the parents action and do what they think is best from a parent perspective. And they have all the best intentions. But like, with our methods and our program, like the buying has been massive, the parents value it. They see the positives in it. They see what they probably wish they could do more of, but don't. And that's what it's all about. It's all about the individuals, what about the player, and making sure we, we all put everything we can into him over the next x amount of time to give him the best chance it's needed. All right, last one for you from a from a self development perspective yourself. And obviously with with your role, trying to stay current ahead of trains, inspiration, creativity, like where do you draw some of that from? And do you get away? And do you get it from outside the game? Or do you go around and get it within the game? I'll be honest, I think some of my biggest learnings have been outside of the game. One of the biggest most, I'll give you two two examples. So one of the biggest learnings for me, well, first one, I was fortunate enough to go and watch Eddie Jones coach the England National Rugby side. And you hear a lot about him in his, his ways and his methods. Probably the two biggest is that he feels all his work is done on the Monday to Friday when it comes to the players. And the other one being that he makes sure his training levels are above the requirements of the game. So it became, the game becomes easy, which is easy to write down and say, right? Okay, what I'm going to go and see when I see this. And I can honestly say for the hour and a half, two hours I was there, I was absolutely blown away. So the day was structured there. So before they even done anything, they're the indoor facility, which we weren't allowed to see, but I heard that they were like performing like scrums and then I suppose they're, they're equivalent of like restarts and set pieces, but it's all walk through. So it's getting his tactical bit in there. And it's demanding. Then they let us in the last bit on that. And then they went into a weight session. So an individual, in a position specific individual weight session. So each position and each person would do in different physical session, depending on where they played and what they needed. This is before the game is this before training started, right? Then they've gone into some sprint stuff with the physical almost coaches, then they've gone to game, bang. And this was a few years ago. So they got a drone on top. So the level of details on point, you know, they've got a drone on top from filming the game. And he has got a ball in his hands at all times. And he's got someone beside him dipping a ball in washing up liquid. And what we're feeling more is because they will prepare to play a country that we can equipment, but it was but they're preparing for rain. So every time the ball went out, he'd throw a new ball in that and just being dipped in washing up liquid. And it was intense. It was demanding. And then it broke off about 12 minutes. It broke up and then they've gone into some tactical technical stuff. And then he's repeated it again. And I'm massive, I need to highlight, but I'm a full of dirty Jones for a bit. And then got all tape round their hands and tape round their fingers and tape round their feet, as you can imagine. So as the session's going on, tapes on the floor and bottles. Anyway, come to the end of the little session. You just getting, you get to talk with the staff members and stuff like that. And I was there with Mark Robinson. So, you know, we're dissecting what we just saw and we're like, yeah, we've got to check ourselves, you know, because they're doing weight session before training. And then they're doing that and that level of detail. Anyway, let's say we turn around. And the players are walking their way over to us. But the glass is clear that there's no tape, there's no bottle, everything's been picked up. Now, I haven't heard anyone, so pick it up. And it's impossible for the staff to pick it up. Basically, the players are going to look after the environment. And where we're standing, the players are making their way to indoors. And remember, standing is off route. And every one of them, Owen Farrell and Mario Atology, you know, some of the top players in the world have gone, they've redirected their walk, come over, shook their hands before going in. And you know, you're just like, we looked at each other without saying anything, but saying everything goes to go, oh my God, you know, anyway, then everyone's got inside. And unfortunately, I said, right, you're more than welcome to join us for lunch. And bear in mind, we're at the English national team. We are nobodies. We're just wearing Wimbledon kit. And now they invite an us to lunch, which, as you can imagine, at certain clubs, no, you know, got to stay away. So we're like, oh, listen, in the most humble way, wow, thank you so much. Okay, but before that happens, yeah, there's going to be a little break. And we don't know what that break was. Eddie and his staff have gone off. So we're like, oh, what's happening? He goes, yeah, Eddie is now reviewing this session, specifically from a coach delivery perspective. So and they go, Eddie is demanding the players, but he's more demanding than his staff. And I'm not sure if you followed Eddie's background, but, you know, he does go through stuff quite a lot in certain, you know, whether that's timing, whether that's delivery, repress interventions, whatever it may be. But he dissected it. He was dissecting. And apparently it's very verbal. The coach's performances, then they've come out. And then someone and the guy that was on speaking to us, he goes, right, just watch Eddie, and it's 45 minutes or so, just watch him. And the point being, is that Eddie, we're going out of his start. We're going out of his, um, his main bit, but he would make sure by the end of lunch, he would have gone and checked him with everyone, but in a way that you wouldn't even know that he's checking in. Gary, how are you today? How's training? You know, Mike, got to be a look. And he's like, wow, okay. So that from a, from a cultural, from a delivery perspective, that made us really check ourselves. And Eddie, I was fortunate enough to, you know, spend some time with him. And he said, his words were, I've been around and watched some of the best coaches, coach in the in football. He said, um, I've got Austin Van Gogh was, had just left Arsenal at the time. So he said, he's from my Austin Van Gogh, Pep Guardiola, he's from my audience. He said, there's only one coach that I've ever gone to see that has made me check myself in football. And he said, Pep Guardiola, he said, um, Pep was at by Munich. He said it was snowing. And it started off with Rondo's and he goes on fire, thinking of, you know, just another football session. Um, you know, Rondo's going to be there. It's going to be there. He said, but what I saw, but he said an hour and a half have gone past. And he said what he saw made him check himself as a, as a practitioner, because whilst it was snowing, every player that came with the pitch, Lewandowski, Reebri, Robin, whoever it was, were buckets of sweat that they had worked. And they, their session was specific and relevant to what whatever is they're preparing for. And he said, seen that made me gone right. There's another level to this. Um, and he, and he was referencing some big names. Um, yeah, and the other one was in terms of culture and it's, it kind of touching someone's stuff he spoke about. I was fortunate enough a few years ago to go to Japan. So my mate has an academy out there and, um, yeah, this is quite mesmerizing. So he has an academy out there and your, your image of an academy is what I'm going to see this. I'm going to see a nice pristine pitch. I'm going to see nice walls. I'm going to see building. And he's took us up today. So basically just like a gravel pit and you're trying to be respectful, but you're trying to be like, is there a mistranslation or something here? I'm not too sure. Anyway, there was no pitch. There were two goals. There was no pitch. It was a gravel and we said, like his name was Shohai, our host. Shohai, where's the pitch? It will come. It will come. Don't worry. Anyway, so we had about an hour before the session. Um, and what we saw was the boys go out and mark their own pitch, center circle, boxes, everything. They went out and marked their own pitch, right? So I'm delivering a session. Um, and naturally as the session progresses, bits of the ground move and stuff, so the white lines rub off and whoever wasn't in the session, because they're the big group of boys would make sure the lines got painted on straight away. So you're seeing culture here, right? I had a jacket on. It was quite humid. I took my jacket off. Got my coaching. All right, boys, go and get a drink. Turn around and my jacket had been hung up. No one said nothing to me. So my jacket had been hung up, took a sip of my drink and resized session, drinking, drinking, putting my bottle down. Another water break. Someone comes up to me with my bottle refilled. And don't you just say like, wow, nothing, nothing couple of walls. No one said what I was going to see. And, you know, maybe my own naivety, I thought I was going to see eggs. But what you saw was a culture I live in and breathe in and that probably touches on some of the points that we spoke about. Um, and even though they had nothing, they had everything, if that makes sense. Um, they had, I'd say their squad was 40 boys with those two coaches. Um, they said to us, right, how many, I'm not saying this bit's right, but I find it's a bit interesting. He said, right, how many players do you need in your session? So we're like about 15. Well, how many do you need in your session? 15. Okay. So there's going to be 10 left over. So, and you fall back because they're looking forward to you coming and taking part in session. And so no, if you need 15, you need 15, the other team will run. What do you mean, they'll run? They will run until you need them. So you probably won't need them because well, then they run and they, and no, no, you can't do that. They got, no, that's what we do here. They run. Um, and this is, like I said, again, it was, whilst there was almost nothing there, there was everything happening. It was so unique and it was, it was eye opening. Um, yeah. And I know I've got a long way of answering your question, but a lot of my learnings have come outside of football. Um, and yeah, I find there's a lot of methods and ways of doing things that if we incorporated the lift and breathe, and I think you do it at the top level, you know, you'll be ulcers, you're tatters and your peps, and that's all the names you've got before. That's where they get a lot of their methods from. Um, yeah, and I've gone to say that's where a lot of my learning and yeah, inspirations come from. Fasten, fasten. Yeah, that, that aspect of character development is, is obviously used a lot today. And, you know, I always think it's glorified where if a player does really well, it's just that it's a routine throwaway, great person, great player. And yeah, but would you talk about theirs almost a culture of gratitude and a culture of, I mean, to be focused and to be on point, as you say, around getting someone thinking about somebody else. Like, that's powerful stuff. But we'll say one thing I think might be useful as well. So, um, and again, keep going back over a bit. But from time to time, you'll have a parent that will press the meeting with a player, you know, Michael, little Johnny's not progressing and, you know, what other club gonna do and what's going to happen. And the first thing, I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not saying we always get a right, but the first thing you say is, right, okay, well, little Johnny, when was the last time you watched your clips? Oh, you know, I haven't looked at weekends games, but I checked a couple of weeks ago. Okay. Okay, and the sports scientists have been giving you, um, programs, you know, and have you been doing that? Oh, yeah, no, I've done this on that day, but I missed that day. And I've brilliant meetings over because you're, you're, you're asking me why progress or performance isn't happening. And your opening question is what, what I or what we can do more, but you've just answered your own question. You're not even bringing what you're meant to bring to the table. And that goes back to washing with us. Use us, drain us and maximize everything around us. And if you don't do that, and you don't bring that side to the, to the conversation, then, you know, whatever we say we'll do, it, it, it's going to hold us value anyway. And there's been quite a lot of times when you've had a parent or player go, like Penny's dropped now. Yeah, right. Thank you, Michael. See you, see you soon, you know, nothing said, but everything said. And again, it goes into the self managing aspect, hard work, and it's just trying to really bring to life the values and, and what we say we do. Brilliant. Brilliant. Michael, are you standing? Well, I've gone way over, but this has flown past. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing. Well, we'll do the hard work soon. Thank you for the invite. Yeah. And if you do the hat trick, I expect the match ball and a few signatures. So yeah. Yeah.