BA (Hons) Football Development and Coaching

Ryan: There's a few football degrees around the country. I think what's different about ours is the coach education is embedded within the course. They get the industry-recognized qualifications alongside the academic degree. But primarily it's the formalized link with the football club, so it's a formal partnership where staff come in and deliver sessions here alongside academic staff. So there's a really good balance between the theory and the industry practice. Working with Argyle Community Trust is fantastic for us on the football degree because it means our students are exposed to lots of coaching environments and football development opportunities out there in the real world whilst they study. So instead of doing a degree and then waiting to build networks with vital contacts in the industry, they're able to do it whilst they study, which means that upon graduation, they're ready just to go into the working world straight away.

Cassandra: I actually did some work experience for Argyle Community Trust. That then enabled me to get a job with them. So at the moment, I work for them, assisting under 16 girls team. While I'm assisting them, and I love it. I got that through coming to university, getting the connections with the people at Our Argyle Community Trust I'll go commit each of, because they're actually in a partnership with us here. So it was a great opportunity-wise to like get experience, foot in the door sort of thing. Through here, I've then gone on to do my football level one. And then I got my disability badge coming up, so I'll be doing that as well through Marjon University.

Patrick: I do like that we have a couple of practical courses, which are really good. So we do a biomechanics course and I was never one to really like physics, but I enjoy watching how that, working out how the body moves and how we can that's our ourselves dependent on form or whatever we do.

Daniel: The best three years that I did. I started late, so I didn't go straight into university from college. But then decided after doing various jobs, I wanted to go to university, and the football coach and development one was the one that hit me that I wanted to do the most. It's not very often that you can get a professional football club like Argyle at work alongside the university. So you get the hands-on experience of the theory side with the football coaching development, as well as the practical within the Argyle Community Trust. So you can take what you learn in the theory, and then you recognize it when you go and work for the trust, that is actually quite helpful.

Chris French: As a former student, who went through the degree program here, and worked my way through up Devon County FA employment structure, now the County Development Manager, realize how important it is to have young people and students work in the community, but also giving them opportunities to have something else in their CV. There are a number of students graduating university now with the same sort of degree, whether it's sports development, or football development.

And actually, as an employer, we're looking for what they've done outside of their degree, where they've taking their studies, and where they've been implementing their studies in the community, giving that bit of volunteering actually makes them standout in their CV. So we wanted to give people in sport, with a passion for football, the opportunity to have that on their CV, and give them the opportunity. So they haven't had to go out and look for it. It's here, it's there. If they want to take part, they can. And we will give them the skills, and the knowledge and the mentoring they need to develop themselves.

Dwain Morgan: It's a really unique, great partnership that the football club has with the degree. Obviously, for us to come in and deliver some guest lectures on the course, allows us to start to teach the content that we need them to know in the real world. And we work alongside Phil and Ryan and the other lecturers, and give their academic research some context. For us, it's great, because it's almost like a three year interview. We get to work with them, lecture them, coach them. And then by the end of their degree studies, hopefully we can turn them into employees for the Argyle Community Trust.

So the Community Trust is a charitable arm of the football club. We work across different strands, but effectively doing charitable work to make sport and football accessible for those that can't access mainstream provision. So we work a lot with targeted groups. We work a lot with young people that can't access football provision. We work a lot with young people with disabilities. We work across the entire community spectrum, in making football, sport and education accessible to all.

One thing we do, is offer a really strong placement program for the students in their second year. They get a chance to come and do 100 hours work experience with us, and really find out what it's like to work with a professional football club, hopefully raising aspirations when they finish to apply for a job that we have. Also, obviously we provide quite a lot of part-time employment for them, so they can earn whilst they learn, give them a great opportunity to do some football coaching in schools and out of schools, which really gives them a taste of flavor for working in the sport development field.

I think the football development and coaching degree at Marjons is really unique, because it has an official partner to the football club. As I've mentioned, embedding the football club into the studies, into the work placements, into the practical coaching, and into the free coach ed that you get as an offer, really places the football club in the heart of the learning experience. It gives us a great opportunity to see the undergrads, and track their journey as they progress to graduates. And that gives us a great chance of offering real sustainable employment to anyone that graduates here at Marjon.

Sam Barton: I was very fortunate to get my work experience through Argyle Community Trust while I was on the degree program. With that, it helped me gain the professional relationships that I needed with the Trust, which really helped me after I finished my degree in applying for the full-time position that I am in now. The Devon FA are really supportive throughout, and they also, with the Argyle Community Trust, are always there to help you, offer you a great opportunity to get involved in other segments of football and coaching around the county.

I feel like this course has really helped me develop the skills and knowledge that I really needed to gain a qualification. But not only that, the professional relationship between the Trust that I gained, really helped me get that support and guidance to really go down the avenue of going onto a sporting environment and the sporting industry.