Professor Chris Cushion and Dr Ed Cope: how to move football coaching culture towards a more ‘evidence-informed’ environment

Coach | Approach | Peter Glynn | 17.12.2021

Learning:

-       The dominance of experience - playing and coaching - as the primary source of knowledge in football coaching

-       Defining what an ‘evidence-informed’ environment in football looks like

-       The importance of ‘evidence-informed’ thinking and asking critical questions

Football coaching culture is largely dominated by previous experience - both playing and coaching - with greater work needed to communicate the benefits of ‘evidence-informed’ practice, say Loughborough University’s Professor Chris Cushion and Dr Ed Cope.

“The culture is still dominated by the influence of experience, whether that's previous playing experience or previous coaching experience,” explains Cushion, who is professor of coaching and pedagogy at Loughborough University.

“I've been in the game for 36 years as a coach and I'm asking ‘what's honestly been done to address the prominence around previous experience as the primary source of coaching knowledge?’”

Cushion, whose own experience includes 10 years in youth football for a number of clubs including Norwich City, Brentford, QPR, Fulham and Derby, stresses that past playing and coaching experience is not to be discounted, but shouldn’t be seen as the only credential for a career, or voice, in the game.