Caithness youths get an insight into football mindset coaching
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
Youth footballers in Caithness have been given an insight into mindset coaching and how it can improve their confidence.
Caithness United arranged for its squads to receive a Zoom presentation from football mindset coach John Johnstone, who provides personal support to a number of elite-level players. He helps them deal with their “inner game”, or “mindset”, and use that to maximise their performances on the park.
The presentation was entitled “Three things you can do to play with more confidence”. He explained in detail how to prepare mentally for matches, and how to use certain tools to help deal with situations better in order to provide and retain confidence.
Caithness United opened up the presentation to all Caithness youth football affiliated clubs, their members, coaches, parents and guardians. It attracted more than 60 viewers and generated a lot of positive feedback.
Johnstone explained that he is from Edinburgh, where he was a plumber, then a personal trainer, before starting his football mindset business in 2016 after battling with confidence as a footballer himself.
His personal experiences inspired him to help others who also struggle with their inner game, the goal being to improve their outer game. He also told the group that a colleague once said to him: “No footballer is ever going to pay you for that service. Try cricket or golf.”
That proved to be a great incentive, as he desperately wanted to prove that person wrong – and, more importantly, prove himself right.
That was one of many messages Johnstone was keen to put across throughout the presentation: using a negative situation to your advantage and creating a positive situation.
After a few months promoting himself around various football clubs, at different levels, explaining his work and providing free sessions, Johnstone finally made the breakthrough by enlisting a professional player onto his books and proving that he had been right to pursue the venture.
Johnstone now has several elite-level footballers paying for his services, all of whom play in Scotland, England, Ireland, Europe or the USA. He linked some of his work back to a number of these clients, such as Chris Cadden (Hibernian and Scotland), John Souttar (Hearts and Scotland) and Greg Docherty (Hull City and Scotland under-21s) to underline the message to his audience that “if players of that level believe in the importance of mindset to breed confidence, then so should you”.
He went on to use quotes from interviews he has held with the likes of ex-Scotland international John Collins, Steven Pressley and Lee McCulloch on the importance of work ethic and commitment. Johnstone also used examples of actual matches in which top teams, such as Atlético Madrid and Liverpool, have benefited from mindset control and how best to deal with negative situations.
During the 75-minute session he answered a number of questions from the audience. In one answer, he shared his thoughts on the differences between motivation and commitment – a theme that is particularly relevant not only for football-related matters but for school work.
Alan Kennedy, who was hosting the session on behalf of Caithness United, said afterwards. “I’ve been an admirer of John's work over the past few months as I follow him on social media. I listen to his daily podcasts, and I’ve read his book, and I find what he has to say on mindset really interesting.
"He takes a relatively complex subject and breaks it down into simple, easy-to-follow steps, and it just makes total sense to me. I’ve certainly learnt a lot from him, and I will definitely be using his techniques going forward.
"It was also great to see so many folk logging on, and I’m sure they have all benefited from the experience as well."
He added: "We at Caithness United are trying our best to keep our squads actively engaged on football-related matters while we are not able to train, and we believe that providing this presentation to our players will undoubtedly help them with their game in the future.
"I contacted John personally and he was only too happy to help out. Also, offering it out to a wider audience was a no-brainer as these are messages that really need to be heard by as many people as possible – not only for football issues, but to assist with life in general at the moment.”
Caithness United has also enlisted the help of Amy Sutherland, of Refresh Health and Fitness Caithness. Over Zoom, she takes the squads through high-intensity interval training sessions.
Kennedy added: "This will definitely help keep the lads ticking over fitness-wise before we are allowed to get back training safely – hopefully soon. We have issued all our players with a comprehensive technical skills programme that can all be performed by themselves in and around their home, which was made available to us through our friends at Ross County youth development.
"Now that the weather is improving, they can also work through the eight skills drills video sessions published on our YouTube channel that we produced last spring/summer – so they have ample material to keep them busy.
"Depending on what advice we get from the SFA regarding a safe return to training, we may well look into other ways of keeping the squads active and engaged."
