Welcome to John Ritchie’s JR-Coaching website. Good coaching, teaching correct techniques and habits, within a professional and safe environment are aimed at helping young players pursue their passion for the game. Ability alone is no guarantee for success: hard work, a good attitude, a healthy lifestyle and discipline are all required to be the best you can be. At JR-Coaching our aim is to inspire you to achieve your goal, to be passionate about playing, about enjoying life, health and football.
"Football's not a game, for some it’s more than that. Coaching's not a job it’s a passion. Coaching is the next best thing to playing. I love working with young players, to help them live their dream."JOHN RITCHIE
12-Apr-2012 - I received a nice surprise last week when a letter arrived from the SFA inviting me to go to Serbia with the Scotland U18s as goalkeeping coach to play two international games against the Serbian U18s team.
So I'm of on Saturday 14th April to meet up with the squad and fly out to Belgrade on the Sunday morning. It will give me the chance to meet up with Jack Hamilton, the Hearts goalkeeper, with whom I had the pleasure of working with when we went to Italy last year to compete in the Under 17s elite qualifying round of the 2011 UEFA under 17s championships.
When I return I will be meeting up with six coaches identified by Alan Morgan of the SFA on behalf of Central Sporting Partnership who are going for their SFA Children's Level 4 Coaching Award. I will be paying 6 visits to each coach over the next few months to watch them deliver a coaching session to their team and then give them feed back on their session. The purpose of this coach mentoring programme is to prepare them for when they go to do the Level 4 award later in the year.
The Just4Keepers coaching sessions have still been going over the Easter Holidays as normal. With the clocks going forward a few weeks ago and there being no need for the floodlights at Woodmill HS we have been able to switch from the Astro surface on to grass which is always welcomed by the goalkeepers. There has been a steady increase in the number of new goalkeepers looking for specialised goalkeeping coaching at J4K sessions since the start of youth football last month. So much so that Monday and Friday sessions are almost full. Makes for a good atmosphere when the classes are busy.
Malcolm Coull and Scott Nisbet will be filling in for me when I'm away in Serbia next week. Malcolm, who until recently was the goalkeeping coach with the youth goalkeepers at Raith Rovers, is an old friend who I worked with when I was the Head of Youth at Dunfermline Athletic a few years back.
Welcome to John Ritchie’s JR-Coaching website. Good coaching, teaching correct techniques and habits, within a professional and safe environment are aimed at helping young players pursue their passion for the game. Ability alone is no guarantee for success: hard work, a good attitude, a healthy lifestyle and discipline are all required to be the best you can be. At JR-Coaching our aim is to inspire you to achieve your goal, to be passionate about playing, about enjoying life, health and football.