“Our environment is really one of learning and development, and we’ve made a big focus from the start of trying to improve each other every day, trying to learn every day – of course trying to win matches is our main business, but trying to make every day a day that we come in and improve.
“We want the players to be curious, we want to foster the love of football, we want them to think about why they’re doing things at times and have a slightly deeper understanding.” - Kieran McKenna
It should come as no surprise to anyone who's followed Ipswich Town in the Kieran McKenna era that he's fostered a culture of growth, self-improvement and learning among his charges.
We often talk about how McKenna and his staff have improved players on the pitch, but those efforts extend far beyond the white lines too.
As an example of that, ten of Town's first team stars are currently giving up their own time to take a bespoke UEFA B coaching course provided by the PFA.
Skipper Sam Morsy plus Massimo Luongo, Dominic Ball, Conor Chaplin, Lee Evans, Cameron Burgess, George Edmundson, Sone Aluko, Kayden Jackson and Vaclav Hladky are all adding another string to their respective bows as they work with academy youngsters.
McKenna is certainly impressed with their efforts. He said: "With the support from the PFA and the availability of the course, it’s coming together to provide an unusually large cohort, but it’s something that the players should be proud of and us as a club should be proud of.
“It can only be good for us as a team and good for us as a club, and also good for those players as individuals to be already developing other things in their personality and careers which might help them further down the line.”
David Bridges of the PFA is working with the group, having crafted a bespoke course to allow them all to get involved.
“It’s really unusual to get so many players at one club interested and engaged in coaching – it highlights the environment which has been created here," he enthused.
"Kieran’s a really personable guy, he’s relatable and the way he’s engaged his players is reflected in where they are in the league as well as what the attitude is to wanting to get better.
“The fact that they want to get on the course is a reflection of that.
“I’ve almost had to adapt how it’s delivered to make sure that I see everyone on the grass, but also so that they’re coaching plenty.
“They’re all in pairs, attached to age groups within the academy and we have a WhatsApp group where they can pop on there about what sessions they’ve done, they’re video and microphoned up so we have evidence and we’ve done it that way.”
Defender Burgess says the course is helping him see the game from another angle.
“I guess when you’re playing sometimes you get lost in the moment and you just play the game and it’s just like being a little boy in the playground, as daft as that sounds," he explained.
“But here you’re trying to put the messages across to the players and that can be a tricky thing at times, trying to get across what you’re trying to say and how you deliver it.
“It’s obviously a new experience, so something we’re trying to gather experience on.”
He added: “We all want to stay in the game and doing this gives us a good insight into what it’s going to be like if we can take it further and become coaches.
“It’s a pretty cool thing, just looking at what we might want to do when we’ve finished playing.
“It’s something we’ve all taken to.”
Midfielder Ball said seeing the youngsters develop has been the best part of the experience.
He enthused: "The opportunity was given to do this course and I think it’s a reflection of the type of characters that we have here – everyone wants to learn, everyone wants to improve and actually you hope it helps your own football.
“David has been excellent with us. You start to get to know the players and you see them improve, and that’s probably where the best feeling is actually.”
Fellow midfielder Luongo admitted he wants to be a coach in the future, so jumped at the chance.
"What we already know, we probably take for granted a little bit – you just expect them to know things that they probably don’t," he explained.
“So you’ve probably got to go down to basics and coach really from grassroots – and that’s the bit I didn’t plan on, I just thought ‘first team, first team’ but there’s so many different levels of coaching.
"I really want to be a coach but if I’m not going to do it now I would probably never have done it.
“We’ve got a good group here that want to improve and have an eye on the future.”
And Chaplin said that the environment McKenna has created makes everyone want to be better.
He stressed: "There’s a culture here that encourages and makes you want to improve as a person, first and foremost – we’ve got lads here doing coaching badges, university degrees, bits on the side that aren’t to do with football.
“There’s definitely a culture here that helps people improve and people want to do that. That comes from the manager and the coaching staff.
“We come in on a Thursday and do the theory sessions, as well as doing the coaching sessions off our own back – we get them recorded and microphoned and everything like that.
“It’s been a really good experience.”
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