Interview with Matteo Parma (@TeoParma)
Who is he?
Passion, expertise, enthusiasm. He wants to learn, every day, something new.
Matteo Parma is 24. After brilliantly passing the “Football and Community Sports Coaching with Arsenal FC” course, he came back to Italy: he will start soon his first experience in an Academy of a pro Club, U.C. AlbinoLeffe, as a Under10’s coach. With a good experience behind him, thanks to the experience in the UK, done also by working in schools.
Is it common to play football in schools in England?
In England they are used to play lot of sports in schools: and not only football, there is a multi-sport approach. Thanks to the schools, the majority of them have good and useful facilities, it is possible to practice different disciplines.
How do they play football in schools? Which kind of project are available?
Lot of project are available for schools that want to give the opportunity to play football to their students. Some programs are developed and carried out by professional Clubs, especially during the PE lessons or through the “After School Club”.
Which is the approach and what are the objectives of these programs?
The aim is to help the students to practice of different disciplines. In regards of football there are two main approaches: first one is more social, based on play football for fun with an eye of equality & diversity. Coaches usually create the sessions with the objective of including different abilities in order to have boys and girls together during the activities. The other one is more related to proper football because schools are used to participate in tournaments and they have to choose the team that will represent them in those matches.
Is football the most important and developed sport in schools?
Is it as important and developed as other sports famous in the UK such as rugby, cricket or badminton.
Obviously, having your Club in your school (Arsenal-Tottenham, Chelsea-Fulham, West Ham-Millwall, Manchester United-Manchester City, Liverpool-Everton) allow football to be a little bit important and visible comparing to the other sports. But football is not their reason of life, here it is.
Who is taking those lessons and which kind of results are they obtaining?
People are qualified: they usually do the Sport Science degree in order to be PE teachers or they are professional football coaches that work for the Community Department of a Club or people that hold coaching certificates that allow them to teach and coach children.
Sometimes also football players are invited and included in these programs: for example when I was at Arsenal, I know Sagna, Walcott or Adebayor spent a bit of their time to participate in these activities. Sagna did technical lessons linked with French, the other two helped children and homeless with other activities.
Now the negative aspect: in Italy football is seen as an “enemy”, something “evil”…do you agree with me?
Absolutely. Headmasters and teachers here do not want to hear anything that involved a ball and players that play with their feet on a pitch because it is considered “traumatic” and for “ignorant people”, children will get injured easily, etc…all my teachers have told me this every year!!!
Anyway, what I do not understand is that the practice of a sport done in a serious way, with a structured project, perhaps linked to particular events or a professional club, gives values, opportunities, rules and teachings that now the children are not receiving anymore.
From my past experience in English schools, among other things, I can safely say that very often girls were the most enthusiastic to play football with a coach of a professional club (in my case the Arsenal) that helps them having fun.
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