About Mini Miners
Creating a brighter future for your child
Mini Miners was originally founded in 2019 with the aim to help develop children with a FUN approach and to place children into grassroots football teams via our partnership with Harton and Westoe Juniors. Our aim is to install a love of the game with the hope of life long participation.
Director Alan Dowson is a UEFA licenced coach has been around grassroots football for over 15 years. coaching hundreds of children over the years from the ages of 3 up to adults.
We currently have 11 qualified coaches working within Mini Miners and our sister partnerships. Our coaches have or are attending University and have a range of qualifications including Sports coaching degrees. Level 1 and 2 coaching qualifications, enhanced first aid and various other qualifications.
Over the years we have helped setup over 25 teams playing grassroots football and helped hundreds of children get onto the grassroots football teams.
What to expect at our sessions
We coach with a 48 week coaching syllabus for our Mini Miners and Masters sessions that we have adjusted over the years. Children learn a range of skills including, passing and receiving, ball striking, dribbling, running with the ball, turning and our skill school not to mention our small sided games.
When I work on session plans the plan always starts in the social and physiological corner of the FA 4 corner model the technical and physical stuff always follows and I believe having young children that are confident and comfortable they will be more equipped to learn.
The Fundamentals
Agility
Balance
Coordination
Speed
Agility means an ability to change the direction of body with the combination of speed, strength, coordination and balance. Agility is required to either match or outclass your opponents individually
Balance is an important skill to develop for young players. Players are required to complete soccer tasks balanced on one leg. The best players in the world all have great balance and this allows them to complete soccer specific skills and movements at high speed, without losing their footing
Football, more than any other sport, requires foot-eye coordination. This football skill allows players to make pinpoint passes, free kick with precision, fake out the defence and dribble the ball. Foot-eye coordination also allows a player to stop a football with his/her foot and make adjustments to intercept the ball.
Speed just getting around requires good acceleration and deceleration with and without the ball. When we develop speed we have to do this by creating short and fast movements just like a footballer would on the pitch.
We want children to be great thinkers and to be intelligent. This can only be achieved if children have limited instruction from coaches and parents. We want to encourage children to work it out for themselves and to problem solve and to make mistakes. Yes the process will take time but with more successful outcome medium to long term.
Everything we coach is realistic to the game, I have never set up a session dribbling around cones or asked kids to go run round the outside of the pitch because its not realistic to a game of football, you don't get cones on a pitch and I've never seen any footballer play a game running a lap around the pitch during the game. I love coaching in chaos and loads of congestion giving the kids loads to think about and plenty of opportunity's to learn no matter what their current level of ability is.