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11New Zealand Football | FUTSAL “The Power of Five” Black & White © CreativeBank 2010New Zealand Football | FUTSAL “The Power of Five” Black & White © CreativeBank 2010PHOTO: Inspire Photographywas a really funny man and set playmaster. I still unashamedly copy his ideas.He is now at West Ham as first team coach.I also followed the then Brentford managerSteve Coppell to Reading - both were bigrole models on player relationships dosand don’ts for me. Steve and Wally took avery young Brentford team onto a playoffin the Championship, losing to StokeCity at Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. AtWycombe Wanderers, Colin Barnes, wasan outstanding identifier of talent and agood developer of young goalkeepers.Also the first team coaches there - TonyAdams, ex-England and Arsenal captain,displayed how difficult it was for a highprofile ex-international professional to workat a level that demanded a huge amount ofunderstanding of youth development andplayers who are not international and havenot played in the premier league. JohnGorman was replaced by Tony Adams; Johnhad been England assistant coach andassistant at Tottenham and Southampton.I liked his attitude to players and staff; hedisplayed respect to all at the club and hehad an influence on how I act althoughhe didn’t realise how much in a shortspace of time he was liked by all. He isAssistant Manager at MK Dons now. Jonnyand Bobby Gould were enjoyable to workwith at Hawke’s Bay United. Bobby wasa comedian and knows how to lighten adressing room and also how to get closeto players. He has a deep knowledge ofgame play. Jonny has a fine playing recordand demands a lot from his players, butis passionate and intelligent. His thoughtsand ideas were helpful to me in termsof working in a smaller franchise (playernumbers). His standards of play are hard tomeet for some players but I admire him fornot lowering the bar and demanding morealways. He has a great sense of humorand together we needed that at times. Wedidn’t always see eye to eye and had afew disagreements but that never camebetween us or our philosophies. We respecteach other and have an understanding ofeach others qualities and I hope we worktogether again.It’s great to see NZ Football supportingfutsal - the return of the Futsal Whites hasbeen a major highlight on the local scenein the last year. How have you enjoyedcoaching futsal at international level?Very much. Working with a group of peoplewho are committed to a cause and willingto work towards barrier-breaking goals isfulfilling and rewarding. And its great tobe developing ‘role models’ for our youngfutsal playersThe side performed well at the OFCChampionships in Fiji last year. Whatdid you see as the team’s strengths andweaknesses?Organisation was a strength and also aweakness. We were organised but notfully all of the time. I believe fitness - bothmental and physical, is the key to this. Wehad good players and defensively we hadoutstanding periods but not for the durationof whole games. We need to have strengthin depth to compete and I feel we have nowgot this going into our new campaign in Fiji2011.