St Mary's Academic Presents at World Congress of Science and Football

Programme Director for BA Physical and Sport Education (PSE) at St Mary’s University, Twickenham Michael Ayres presented a paper at the eighth World Congress of Science and Football in Copenhagen. The conference, which welcomed over 500 delegates, is a leading forum to discuss sport science and football. The paper entitled Weaker, one strong’ - pedagogical considerations of developing an elite player’s non dominant foot through a game centred approach discussed the findings of a study undertaken with PSE Lecturer Sam Page which sought to understand the pedagogical challenges and dilemmas experienced by coaches in an elite football setting when attempting to develop player’s non-dominant foot using a game centered approach. Michael said, “One of the biggest challenges faced by coaches of young people is to ensure learning is transferred from practice to game situations. The research Sam and I conducted is the first attempt at beginning to understand some of the challenges coaches face when using games to help develop a players non dominant foot. “The conference provided a fantastic platform for us to showcase the current innovative research activity currently being undertaken within the PSE team. It was also an example of how fortunate we are to be able combine our roles as researchers and elite football coaches. The presentation was very well received and has led to preliminary discussion on future international research collaborations which is a very exciting opportunity for us." To find out more about the conference and the other papers presented, the conference abstracts can be downloaded here.