Hutchie goes under Coerver in coach boost

One of Edinburgh's most progressive youth football clubs, Hutchison Vale, has announced a partnership with the coach development company Coerver.

Hutchie's coaching staff will benefit from expertise gathered by Coerver through its work with some of the top clubs in world football, such as AC Milan and Real Madrid.

Joe Jones, 26, a former player with Livingston, has worked for Coerver for eight years and will help deliver the coaching programme to the Ford's Road club.

He says, "It's a programme built around technical skills. We've done some one-off things with Hutchie over the years and they're now looking for something to kick them forward.

"We had a meeting to see what we could bring to the club, and we'll now have an affiliated programme with them, which involves educating coaches and helping the young players.

"We're not there to take teams or to change the coaching or how things are delivered.

"The idea is the same as what we have with Newcastle United, an integrated approach and a technical focus - we're there to support coaches. We're constantly getting information through our work with big clubs like AC Milan and Real Madrid, so we have lots of ideas and philosophies to pass on."

One of the first initiatives Coerver will run in association with the club will be a holiday training camp for young players, which will involve an additional 30 hours of training over a week. Coerver is a global football coaching programme inspired by the teachings of Wiel Coerver and created in 1984 by Alfred Galustian and Chelsea's Charlie Cooke. New Aston Villa manager Gerrard Houllier is a big fan of the courses, saying: "Coerver Coaching is the best technical skills teaching method I have come across; even after 25 years it continues to evolve and excite."