Recent studies have provided important initial insights into the relational and micropolitical dimensions of coach educators' and coach developers' work. However, there remains a paucity of inquiry addressing how sporting organisations prepare these members of their workforce to achieve desired goals and objectives. This research uses realist…

The micro-level enactment of elite sport policy has received little critical coverage in the sociology of sport subdiscipline. This paper provides original insights into how coaches working in professional youth football academies variously interpreted, experienced and engaged with The FA Premier League's Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP).…

Discussions about "athlete-centered" coaching and "coach-centered" coach education have started to gain increasing popularity in the field of coaching science. While it has been suggested that these 'learner-centered' approaches arguably align with the theoretical ideals of humanistic psychology, an in-depth…

The aim of this paper was to provide some rich insights into how an elite ice-hockey player responded to his coaches' pedagogical delivery of video-based feedback sessions. Data for this study were gathered through a series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews and a reflective log relating to those interviews. The interviews were transcribed…

This article seeks to critically consider the traditional linear staged model of expertise development commonly employed in the sports coaching literature, which has been principally based upon the accumulation of threshold amounts of hours of experience. Here, we draw upon recent developments in the broader expertise literature, which is starting…

This paper examines the micro-political experiences of Adam (a pseudonym), a newly appointed fitness coach at a Football Association Premier League club, in his search for acceptance by senior colleagues. Data were collected through a series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews, before being subject to a process of inductive analysis. Goffman's…

Background: Coach education has been identified as a key vehicle for raising the standard of coaching practice. However, the existing body of literature suggests that coach education has had a limited impact on the learning and development of coaching practitioners. In this respect, it has been contended that coach educations ills might be…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how coaches perceived and responded to the content knowledge and assessment processes that they were exposed to during an advanced level soccer coaching award programme. In-depth interviews were conducted with six coaches who had successfully completed the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA)…

This study builds upon existing socio-cultural work into sports coaching by probing the meanings and varieties of the shared coach-athlete experience. Specifically, the paper utilises an autoethnographic approach in an attempt to chart the complex and dynamic relationship that existed between me, the principal author, as a rowing coxswain and my…

According to Jones, Wells, Peters, and Johnson (1993), being political is a necessary part of a coach's repertoire, because a coach's effectiveness and longevity may depend not only on a favorable win-loss record but also on an individual's ability to gain the approval of contextual power brokers (e.g., athletes, other coaches, or owners).…