Exploring the coaching journeys of non-professional football players to professional football coaches

The aim of this research was to comprehensively explore the coaching journeys and identity development of seven professional football coaches who had progressed from non-professional playing backgrounds to coach at the professional level. Semi-structured interviews were used and thematically analysed for each of the seven coaches, before being combined to create five major themes. Key findings revolved around the benefits of the non-professional playing pathway, with coaches presenting the ability to gain depths of experiential learning and pursue tailored informal learning opportunities as hugely beneficial to their personal development and education. The impact of existing perceived difficulties currently attributed to this pathway in research, namely the smaller network of contacts and accessibility to jobs, were also explored. Findings present new insights into the sacrifice and work-ethic required to overcome challenges when following this pathway, whilst also uncovering the mental challenges of self-doubt and low-confidence that can affect these coaches during their journey.