Here are some favourite quotes on street football, youth football and skillfull football.




"A touch is a touch, even a bad one"


Bert-Jan Heijmans – The dutchUK football school

"Let youngsters develop at their own pace and enjoy football. When they
reach twelve to fourteen years, then start teaching them basic skills. Training
should be fun, so the youngsters have fun as well as learning at the same
time."
Colin Foster (ex Nottingham
Forest
player)

"I love football – particularly beautiful football"
Johan Cruyff

"Children learn by playing."
John Allpress – Player development – The FA

"Everything I have achieved in football is due to playing football in the
streets with my friends"
Zinedan Zidan

"The World Cup wasn’t won (in 1966) on the playing fields of England. It
was won on the streets"
Bobby Charlton

"I go out and play with imagination. It comes naturally to me. That’s how
everybody plays in London
when your playing street football."
Joe Cole

"In England
there is so much talent. I am convinced that at least 20 players at non league
level could have played as well as Thierry Henry in the Premiership if they had
been exposed to the correct coaching. I think it is easier to spoil your talent
than bring it to the top."
Arsene Wenger

"I must admit that football in the streets gave us a great sense of
freedom and liberty."
Eric Cantona

"I am not sure about the academy system most clubs have – what is the
point of trying to discipline a seven year old? You have to let them find their
own game. I never changed my game – people have to do what they feel
comfortable with."
Gazza

"We didn’t need a referee; we accepted the rules of the game and stuck by
them. For us not to of done so would of spoilt the game for everyone. It taught
us that you can’t go around doing what you want because there are others to
think of and if you don’t stick to the rules, you spoil it for everyone else.
Of course that was not a conscious thought at the time, but looking back
those  kick about games on the waste ground did prepare us for life."
Stanley Matthews

"Before a game when all the noise is happening around him, Zola sits in
the corner and remembers when he used to play football in the hills of
Sardinia, where he was born. He remembers the sheer joy of football and that is
what is important."
Malcolm Cook

"The kid’s game, chaotic as it is, is still the surest way of nuturing
talent."
Paul Gardner (football journalist on street football)

"They learn to win before they can play."
Ted Bates (ex Southampton manager, on how young
boys are rushed into competition far too early at the expense of acquiring
technique.)

"It helped that I had so many quality player’s around me.They all seemed
so comfortable on the ball. (which explained why so many converted from left
wing to left back or from midfield to sweeper) They could all pass the ball
well and had sweet first touches. In England it was so often the case of
‘don’t pass to him, he can’t handle it.’
I never heard that in France.
(Chris Waddle on his time at Marseilles)

"We played until our legs gave way – scores of 15-13 were not uncommon –
and I never stopped running.  I tried to make up in enthusiasm what I
lacked in physical presence, for all the boys were much bigger than I was, or
so it felt.
Football united the kids. You didn’t have to call for your mates; simply
walking down the  street bouncing a ball had the Pied Piper effect. We
could all smell a game from 200 yards."
Tom Finney

"But when you go out into the street or park to play football with other
children for the first time, you are immersed into a world you do not control
and of which you are not the centre. There is no safety net. You have to learn
how to get along, how to resolve disputes, how to get by."
Paulo de Canio

"Young players need freedom of expression to devlop as creative
players…they should be encouraged to try skills wihout fear of failure."
Arsene Wenger

"I knew I was better at football than the others in the playground,
although the teachers just looked at my size and that was against me from the
start."
Alan Ball (Ball was never selected for his school side despite winning a World
Cup winners medal some 4 years later at the age of 19)

"It strikes me that these days clubs don’t even want players that can
truly play anymore; they just want athletes, quick guys that don’t have a
football brain, but can just run and run."
Robbie Fowler

"In a sport obsessed not merely by youth but by sheer childhood – clubs
now co-opt eight and nine years olds – the late developers tend to be over
looked."
Brian Glanville (football writer)

"I like to play by instinct."
Zinedan Zidane

"We played total football before the term was even invented. Times were
hard, football I guess helped us forget, kept our spirits up, and gave us
plenty to laugh about."
Jimmy Johnstone

"The spirit is wrong and it hurts me. I spent my whole career as a manager
trying to stop this devaluation of the game. I cared more about the purity and
finer values of football than I did about winning for winning’s sake – and if
that is a sin then I am a sinner. Football should be about taking risks."
Ron Greenwood