Thurso youth coach says Caley Thistle tie-up is 'massive' boost to leadership scheme
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Alyn Gunn says it is a "massive" boost to have the backing of Inverness Caledonian Thistle for a Highland-wide leadership scheme aimed at young people.
Gunn, who has won plaudits for his work as Thurso Football Academy's head of coaching, is involved in a new tie-up between High Life Highland and the Scottish Championship side who lost out to Celtic in last weekend's Scottish Cup final.
The High Life Highland Leadership Programme deploys people between the ages of 12 and 25 into their local community, ranging between museums, music tuition, libraries, youth work and the most common area, sport.
Sport's prevalence in the programme is a result of its origins, starting out as an Active Schools project and expanding out across the Highlands.
Young people gain life skills around employability, and through the Choose to Lead programme in partnership with UHI Inverness they can gain level four and five Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework credits that help when applying for further education.
There are more tangible rewards for youngsters too. A common refrain among staff and young people is "it's all about the hoodie", with participants working their way through various colours until they get to the top black-and-gold hoodie for 500 hours of engagement.
An estimated 4500 youngsters have enrolled in the programme since it was introduced Highland-wide seven years ago.
Gunn developed the football training pack being used as part of the programme, which also works with the Scottish FA to develop coaching abilities.
It has already been endorsed by global football stars such as Claude Makelele and Frank de Boer. Now, efforts are being made to formalise a relationship with Caley Thistle.
"The hope is that we can now have a chat with Caley Thistle to talk about deployment of our young leaders out to their community projects," Elizabeth McDonald, the leadership programme's development officer, said.
"It could work the other way round too – their young players could become part of our leadership programme, and we could offer them training around that.
"There's a kudos around it if Caley Thistle are supporting it, especially if young footballers are involved in our programme. They are seeing that Caley Thistle think it's okay, so it will become even cooler to be there."
Gunn said: "John Robertson [ICT sporting director] is endorsing our football leadership programme that we're running through High Life Highland.
"If you're 14 or 15 years old and you're interested in football, there are free Scottish FA courses you can take, so we've tied in with that and UK Coaching to run an online cardiac arrest course.
"It's a good opportunity for young people to develop these skills, and we've tried to fit all that into our programme.
"We will try to get them experience with Caley Thistle's community team and through our Active Schools coordinators across the Highlands.
"Just having a club as outstanding as Caley backing our ideas and supporting our efforts is massive to us.
"We hope that it's a longevity thing where Caley can tie into our leadership sometimes and we can give them our young leaders. Everyone's a winner."
Gunn has seen first-hand that the leadership programme – and even the junior leaders scheme for older primary school pupils – truly has an impact all across the Highlands.
"The leadership programme is massive in Thurso," he said. "It really is all about the hoodies, because you see them all going about school with them on.
"The young leaders really enjoy getting involved in the programmes that we put on, and it gives them the skill set to be able to take training sessions in a lot of sports – not just football. It gives them a bit of ownership over it as well.
"We're in various schools in Thurso at the moment doing junior leaders sessions, and that will translate into high school. The pathway is there."
In October 2021, Gunn achieved a national accolade after producing a training booklet that helped thousands of youngsters across Europe to develop their skills during the pandemic. He was one of 25 coaches to be named as winners in the UK Coaching Hero Awards from nearly 500 public nominations.
A booklet called Tiny Tacklers was designed by Gunn as part of a Keep Scotland Active scheme in response to Covid. The booklet used superheroes and cartoon characters to capture the imagination of children and keep them engaged in training drills and football-themed games.
Initially it was intended for just 25 children, but more than 10,000 youngsters across Europe received free copies. He also supplied free footballs and water bottles.
At the end of 2020, Gunn was named as a Coaching, Officiating and Volunteering champion in an award scheme run by SportScotland and UK Coaching.
