The lights go out. The bell tolls. Eerie, funereal music plays. The druids line up holding flaming torches to light the path for a giant of a man draped black. The Undertaker has entered a World Wrestling Entertainment arena.
It’s likely that many people who are not wrestling fans have heard of the Undertaker. A character whose twenty plus year career has remained popular with audiences world wide. It is also likely that many wrestling aficionados have never heard of Texas Red, The Master of Pain, Punisher Dice Morgan or Mean Mark Callous. These were all characters Mark Calaway before he took on the Undertaker gimmick.
Gimmicks can be hugely successful, like the Undertaker. Yet for as many people who have heard of him far more have heard of the names Hulk Hogan, The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin. Their gimmicks? They didn’t really have any. Catch phrases yes, gimmicks no.
There are many gimmicky things that we come across. In football it is no different. Someone is trying to sell you their gadget or gizmo. As coaches we are constantly looking for things to keep training fresh, but if we bought every new gimmick we came across the country would be filled with coaches with very full sheds and very empty bank accounts.
What coaches and wrestlers have in common is the quest for success. For wrestlers success is people regularly wanting to pay money to watch them. For coaches success is developing players and helping them to reach their full potential. If a gimmick can help provide a short cut to that success then all the better.
One such gizmo is the Football Flick Urban. It is described as three dimensional multi user football skills trainer. With it’s curved sides and inner net it could be also be described as an attempted sophisticated rebounder. A less generous description might be that of a bin with big sides and no lid. Without using one it is very difficult to tell which description is most accurate. Whether it is another Undertaker or another Shockmaster, a fat man in a sparkling Stormtrooper helmet. The biggest issue being that it will cost me at least £75 to find out.
Football Flick Urban is not the only one of it’s kind. There is the Soccerwave. Or Goalrilla. How do you choose? How do you avoid the full garage and empty wallet?
Maybe by choosing what the pros choose?
Goalkeeping is an area that pro clubs are really embracing gimmicks. Two successful examples are Responseball and Globus. Responseball is an example of something low tech but succesful, in essence a ball with an uneven and unpredictable bounce. This makes it within the grasp of the general public. The Globus EuroGoal is a top of the range machine with a budget to match. Similar to a bowling machine it can be programmed to replicate the dip and swerve of a variety of shots to give a goalkeeper a real work out.
These gimmicks have proven successful for their companies, but what about for the players? After all the definition of success for a coach is to develop players and bring the best out of them.
The Senseball is a gimmick from Belgium, developed by coach Michel Bruyninckx. The Senseball is a ball on a piece of string with a handle. Sounds very simplistic. The difference between the Senseball and other balls on string is that it forms a part of CogiTraining. The idea being that the player trains not only their feet but their brain as well. Of course, all training is of the brain, something has to send the signals to your feet, hands or forehead. Whatever the intricacies of Bruynickx method the success is there. In 2011 an estimated 25% of the players Bruynickx had coached made it as professionals. More have followed.
A method. When something is unproven it is called a gimmick. Once it has a track record of success it is called a method. The most famous method being that of Coerver. When a training style has become a global brand, used by a wide variety of clubs and national federations, we can’t call it a gimmick anymore, can we? It should be accepted as a proven method for developing ability and engaging the attention of children, shouldn’t it?
For many years Futsal was viewed as a gimmick in England. Perhaps a lack of understanding. Perhaps snobbery. Yet it has been proven to develop players over the course of multiple decades. Simon Clifford introduced his Brazilian Soccer Schools in the mid 1990s, still it was seen as a gimmick. A number of Brazilian Soccer School players signed professional terms. Then Futsal received more attention in England with the FA introducing coaching courses and dedicating full time staff to the England Futsal team. Some criticise the Brazilian Soccer Schools for not being pure Futsal, calling it Coerver with a Futsal ball. For Futsal is not a gimmick, it is a game of it’s own. What Simon Clifford had/has is a method.
It is not really shortcuts that are desired. The real quest is to maximise the time we have available, At grassroots level the fortunate coaches will get two training sessions a week and four hours to work with. Most will get two hours. the most unlucky will only get one. With so little contact time the goal is to get the most out of every minute. To get the players engaged and tuned to utilise every second. Gimmicks are great for grabbing the attention.
Technology is also fantastic. Technological gimmicks don’t just grab the attention of children but their parents too. iPads, iPods, Smatwatches, 3D televisions and so on. Smartphones are everywhere. This gives coaches mobile access to YouTube and a wide variety of videos. The lure of watching skills being demonstrated on the screen is almost irresistible to children. It can be seen as a gimmick but video coaching is a useful way of grabbing their attention and providing a better demonstration than many coaches are able to produce.
Not all gimmicks are equal. Some may sound improbable. Why should a late 20th century audience connect with the zombified form of a wild west undertaker? How can a ball on a string help you become a professional footballer? Research them. Try them if you can, because you could be amongst the first to realise that a gimmick is actually a method.
The Undertaker’s entrance – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHH0YgiD8WQ
Football Flick Urban – http://www.footballflick.com/
The Shockmaster – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7Q4EVpIFIk
Soccerwave – http://www.soccerwaveuk.com/
Goalrilla – http://www.goalrilla.com/training-equipment/striker-trainer
Responseball – http://www.responseball.com/about/
Paul Merson v Globus – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZfwVewmuBU
BBC CogiTraining article – http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/9421702.stm