Kelly Fillingham is a Performance Coach and Coach Developer. She is currently employed by Scottish Hockey as the West Regional Development Manager and the Head of Scottish Hockey Girls Emerging Talent Squad, as well as leading on the BRAVE Academy Program. She is also the Director of 360 Hockey.
In this episode Kelly discusses:
- Her hockey career, playing in the UK and USA and being a “student of coaches”.
- Embracing new challenges coaching in England’s talent system, as well as Scottish Masters League.
- How Scottish Hockey entered a “Reset phase” and the opportunity to do things differently.
- How this lead to the Brave Academy and the idea of Emerging & Aspiring Squads.
- The player numbers, regional centres, education plan and future expansion.
You can listen to the episode in full here.
You can follow Kelly on Twitter via: @Twiddle81 and the Brave Academy via @ScottishHockey and the website www.scotttish-hockey.org.uk .
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Rob Anderson
Welcome, Kelly, it’s great to have you on the podcast this morning. Thanks for your time.
Kelly Fillingham
No bother Rob. I’m excited looking forward to chat.
Rob Anderson
So before we dig into the brave Academy and the blueprint for Scottish hockey, tell us a bit about your story. Your background as a young athlete, how did you get into sport? Was it initially hockey or something else? What what did that journey look like for you?
Kelly Fillingham
Well, as you can probably tell by the accent, I’m not a native Scott. So I hail from the beautiful county of Yorkshire. So yes, sports always been massive, massive to me. I am. Academia wasn’t wasn’t my wasn’t my path at school. You know, I did okay. And I got on okay with some stuff. But, you know, I just wanted to be outside playing sport all the time. So yeah, I that’s kind of where it started. For me. I guess I’ve got that traditional story of a really cool PE teacher, that that sort of saw a little bit of talent in different sports for me. So I was, you know, I was really lucky. I got exposed to play lots of different things at a young age. I didn’t, I didn’t specialise too early, which, I’m sure it’s something we’ll chat about a bit later on. But ya know, I played everything. Cricket, hockey, football. rounders. You know, I did, I did a bit of everything. So it was it was pretty cool.
Rob Anderson
And when did hockey become your kind of main focus was that quite late on or
Kelly Fillingham
so I’d say I got to about 15. And I had to make a choice. So I’d, I’d got signed up for football academy with Sheffield Wednesday that were my, my kind of club, my hometown club. So I got I got an opportunity to go and play with their ladies football academy, and was also playing hockey for a club at this point. And everything then started to clash. And, you know, I remember the coaches at the time being very specific about you got to make decisions. That was that was kind of the language. So yeah, I thought about it long and hard. And at that point, I was probably slightly better at football. And my, my granddad actually had ambitions of me going because Italy was the place to go and play ladies football at the time, which was a while ago, you know, that was, that was kind of it was really big in Italy. And he’d got ambitions of he was gonna retire from our family business and take me around Italy playing football. So, you know, he was team football. But yeah, I just, I don’t know, I just had an ad a connection. Kochi. I just, I felt something a bit special when I played hockey and I really loved the club, the local club I was at the time. So yeah, I picked hockey. Yeah. Read it and then regret it.
Rob Anderson
What did the hockey career look like? Was that kind of more recreational was a university teams representative? What did that career look like?
Kelly Fillingham
No I did. Okay. I did. Okay. So I got to play quite early on some national Prem down in England. I got a scholarship to go out to the states to play which, which is pretty cool. And so yeah, I made it all the way to sort of the age group stuff for England. At the time, the system was really different. And it’s kind of the system then was everything we’re trying to change now. You know, you were kind of really short, sharp trials, you’re in, you’re out, you know, and there was a huge north south divide at that time. You know, and I think England, England hockey have done a really good job of trying to sort of bridge that bridge of that, but yeah, at the time, it was. It was pretty, you know, there were only a few northern girls in silver. You know, Reppert international representative squad. So yeah, it was it was a tough gig trying to get into that. But yeah, I did. I did. Okay, for playing career, I got to play at a really high level down at home. And then unfortunately, I got an ACL tear which scuppered my scope of my playing in America. So back in back played at Leeds uni in the books prime for a while, and yeah, I don’t, I’d always loved coaching. So I kind of always had that as a thought around what I wanted to do. And as the, as the ACL happened the second time, you know, I thought this is this is a bit painful, I perhaps need to think of a different way to to enjoy the sport. So I was okay, I got some really, you know, I got some really highs in a playing career before I transitioned to coaching.
Rob Anderson
So were you kind of collecting coaching qualifications in the background while you’re playing? Or was that very much something you did after you stopped playing entirely?
Kelly Fillingham
Yeah, I mean, I did. I did my level one pretty early on old school level one, and I did my level old school level two pretty early on, and then stopped for a little while while I kind of finished playing, but I was always conscious of being quite a student of the coaches. You know, I really watched what the coaches were doing. I’ve had really different coaches throughout my career, some exceptional ones, some pretty terrible ones, and I will And I’ve learned from all of them. And yeah, I was I was really conscious of I made loads of notes, say I was a bit of a geek bit of a hockey badger. And learned loads from them. And then I guess when I, I took on a kind of player coach role. And that was, that was really tough. That was really tough. And then from that point on, I thought, okay, if I’m gonna take this seriously, I need to I need to rack through the a bit more sort of education around it. So yeah, then I did my level three, and then around sort of five, six years ago, I did the advanced advanced coaching course. So I’ve always been conscious of wanting to learn. I do love CPD, and I do think it’s really important. And, you know, I’ll do more, you know, I don’t feel like I’ve stopped or I have learned everything I’ll I’ll carry on hopefully.
Rob Anderson
So what’s the coaching career look like? Where did the what were some of the stops along the way that took you up to Scottish hockey?
Kelly Fillingham
Oh, yes, it’s a it’s a bit of a windy journey. I started at my the, I was living in Huddersfield. So I was I was playing, I guess we call it a medium sized team down in a medium sized club down in England, sort of six men’s teams, six women’s teams. You know, a junior section and and I took over the first team coach to start with, and then took over the doing the men and the women. And that was really cool. Because I’d coach in a men’s first team was a really good learning experience. really different to kind of coaching a women’s first team. And you learn lots of different skills. And then just loved it just absolutely loved it. I loved being involved in the strategic side of everything, and thinking differently, not just stepping on a pitch and playing my game, but actually thinking about every tiny little detail that goes into the game. So yeah, that was kind of it. The book was there and and then I just started to, to kind of pick up different coaching jobs and think, okay, I can do this full time. So yeah, quit the quit the marketing job, and sort of took on full time, full time coaching job and picked up some some after school clubs. It was tough the first year or so. But yeah, then I landed on my feet with a job at Green Ed College in Yorkshire and their state school sort of Sixth Form College structures a little bit different than in England, you kind of leave school and go to go to a different place for college some of the time. So yeah, that was that was pretty cool. And they were, their hockey programme was okay, but I was there for 10 years. And we, we transitioned to the top three nationally, and we stayed there for 10 years. And I think that’s the thing I’m probably most proud of it was, it was a great journey. I learned loads during that job. So I managed to do that alongside club coaching and, you know, as really having a good run and developing the club. And yeah, I did that for 10 years, sort of in Huddersfield kind of really working working hard in the, in the hockey scene there. So yeah, it was a really good grounding experience for me. So what brought you further north? Well, what that is a really good question. What was the first challenge, you know, challenge I was working in the talent system in England. I was I had kind of switched up and had gone to a national league club to coach so I was I was kind of a stretch myself in lots of different ways. And then actually a master’s Master’s job came up in Scotland before anything else. And I was on my ACP course. And I was chatting to my mentor, and he said, you know, why don’t you Why don’t you do something different? You know, why don’t you stretch yourself in a different way. So I thought, gosh, what could be more different than coaching an over 50s team in a totally different country, that will be pretty cool. So I applied for that. And I guess that was the start and met some super cool people in the Masters. The Scottish Masters is brilliant, it’s full of amazing people. And I guess the that was kind of my intro into Scottish hockey. And I thought, you know, it’d be pretty cool to work for slightly smaller organisation but an ambitious one. Because, you know, you can make a real impact there sometimes, you know, that downhole done in England is so big that you know, your your arm’s length from everything and being really impactful can be can be tough. So actually, I thought you know that that will be pretty cool. And the age the national age group job came up, so I applied for that and got it and then yeah, one thing led to another and the full time job came up and I was lucky enough to get that so it feels like it’s been a bit of a whirlwind the last the last four years. I was just coming in for a little bit of stretch and a little bit of coaching and I’ve ended up up here permanently.
Rob Anderson
So It’s funny how one thing kind of leads to another and suddenly you think, Am I gay?
Kelly Fillingham
Yeah, I think sometimes you’ve just got to follow the journey. You know, it felt like I felt at home. You know, I’m very kind of proud to be from Yorkshire. I’m very, I’m very, I love it there. And I thought probably the only other place I could go and live in Scotland because it’s, it feels similar. So yeah, I think I think it feels I feel at home here. And I think we’ve got an opportunity to do some really good work as well.
Rob Anderson
So tell us a bit about some of the things that have changed. It’s kind of tricky. That was one of the reasons I was so interested to speak to some was around, you know, some of the brave Academy ideas and the change in the blueprint of what you’re trying to do. So give us a bit of an overview of maybe what happened before in terms of age group setups, and what prompted some ideas to go, we can look at this a bit differently, and how that kind of evolved.
Kelly Fillingham
So I think, you know, Scottish hockey, obviously, there they’re in, they’re in a kind of real reset phase at the moment, pre pre that I think, you know, we were quite traditional in how we thought about things, you know, you we had trials, traditional trials, and that age group trials, and that led to, you know, national selection. And, you know, I think it was just all done over a very short, short period of time, because, you know, you’ve got limited amount of volunteers as volunteers, we’ve got limited amount of capacity, because you know, they’re not they’re not paid staff, these are people doing things on top of their, their extra jobs. You know, and we just had a talent system that wasn’t particularly joined up, or as joined up as it could be, and everybody working really hard. And everybody kind of doing doing the right things as we thought it was then, but not not particularly joined up or probably working smart. I think so I think, you know, lots of people working really hard and doing really great things. But just because we maybe didn’t have the structure from a Scottish Augie point of view that join them all up. You know, and I think what we’re seeing as a nation is the challenges we face. Are the nations have progressively professionalised, I think is probably the best word. So, you know, where we’re kind of slightly behind the curve, because geographically we just have less numbers. But equally, lots of other nations that have taken that step to a more professional approach. You know, I was lucky enough to work in the talent stuff in England in a performance centres. You know, and we have that middle layer that that kind of catches players and and helps develop players. And I think that was a big part of what was potentially missing up here that that middle layer of okay, I’ve not made it into a 1% of a national squad, what happens to me while you go away till next year, and we’ll see, we’ll see you then. So I think that was, that was a real thought COVID was a great opportunity for us to pause, and really think about stuff because nothing was happening. So we took that time, and, you know, the brave Blueprint was developed around, this is our way forward for Scottish hockey, this is what we want to be this is what we want to create, this is how we’re going to do it. And then from that came the brave Academy, which is, is our new, I guess, middle layer of pathway. So the shift from obviously, traditional age groups, to stage groups, I think is is probably the biggest part of all of that. And we’ve kind of got this mantra, right, play a right opportunity, right time. And that that’s the thing that governs is, you know, can we give the right player the right opportunity at the right time. And we probably weren’t doing that previously. Because we were we were limiting ourselves to sort of just age group. So I think by opening that up, now, we’re hopefully going to going to tackle some of the issues that we had previously.
Rob Anderson
I think it probably be helpful to kind of, I guess, do a big picture on what is what I know of you, I guess, the blueprint as a whole. And then we can zoom into the brain Academy to talk us through a bit of the structure, the blueprint, and then we can focus specifically on the brave Academy and some of that stages, as you’ve mentioned.
Kelly Fillingham
Yeah, so the blueprint, the brave performance Blueprint was, I guess it’s our, I guess, principles, I suppose in to kind of sum it up relatively easily. You know, it’s how we want to play as a nation. It’s how we want our hockey to kind of look as a nation what we want individual players to be able to develop. So you know, a lot there’s countless hours of research and time, and obviously the senior coaches heavily involved and driving driving that and with input from sort of everybody in the pathway. So it’s been a huge piece, the blueprint and I think we want to use it as exactly that. It’s a blueprint that we then kind of scaffold everything around. So from a coach education to our to how we structure our national programme. comes to how we try and you know, help coaches deliver everything is in that that blueprint. So, you know, the mind minute detail around how we want to transition from attack to defences in there. But also in there is how we want to coach you know, what we what we want our coaches, what skills you want our coaches to have, what how we want them to prioritise their training sessions. So it’s meant as exactly that a blueprint for for everything that comes comes after and everything we kind of scaffold around it.
Rob Anderson
So let’s zoom into the brave Academy then and have a bit of a chat around there. What sort of age and stage are we talking about, you know, as an entry point and an exit point, what does that journey? And obviously, it looks different for different individuals as you start to highlight, but what’s the kind of themes and what happens in that, that Academy?
Kelly Fillingham
So I guess, our, our ideal is, we’d probably see kids from from 14, upwards, you know, we traditionally the age groups have been under 16, under 14, under 16, under 18. Like, as I alluded to earlier, you know, I think early specialisation, there’s lots of research now that that actually doesn’t, doesn’t always help in sport, particularly team sports, you know, kids lose a lot of fundamental movement skills, one of the things we’re finding at the moment is we’re having to help kids move athletically. Because, you know, they don’t Chuck footballs down, don’t Chuck jumpers down and play football anymore. They don’t climb trees, you know, they don’t just randomly do cartwheels for the, for the love of it. So I think what we’re what we’re trying to do is say, okay, look, we don’t want kids to young, you know, let them go play, let them enjoy it, let them kind of diversify a little bit. And when they get to sort of under 15, you know, that’s, that’s that period, we’ll bring them into the brave Academy. So we roughly work off ages of under 15, and under 17, as a very, very kind of rough guide, because, you know, clubs, and schools still still want to know, who should we be sending to this, you know, we’re not in that place yet where everybody’s across all the detail, because it’s brand new. So we’ve kind of got that as a rough, a rough thought process. But then just to give you a flavour, we’ve got some 15 year olds, 14 year olds in the aspiring group. And we’ve got some 17 year olds in the emerging group, because that’s their training age. So we give, we give, like external bodies, sort of caveat of, you know, look at these ages, roughly, but then when they come to us, we then kind of help stage them into where is going to be best for their development. So we were trying to work more in ability groups, rather than age groups.
Rob Anderson
That was one of the things as I was digging in and doing, you know, a bit of research was, I liked this idea of aspiring and emerging kind of groups and having a I guess, a slightly different path. So talk to us about what do we mean by the aspiring group? What do you mean by the emerging group? What filters one person into one maybe over the other? And what are some of the aims?
Kelly Fillingham
So you’ve hit on the thing that I think we’re probably struggling with the most, which is the terminology and people kind of getting getting used to what’s aspiring what’s emerging. So I’ve started anybody in the staff now I’ve started finding them if they call it under 16, and under eight teams. So I’ll let you off, Rob, because it’s the first time we’ve met. But yeah. So yeah, in terms of emerging, for us, it’s that I guess, the first step into a national pathway. And I think it’s really, what’s really important is, is young players, usually around 14 to 17 year old, we’re starting to demonstrate performance potential abilities that are required of kind of international athletes starting to it’s not consistent, you know, they’re just starting to show that. And then our aspiring talent would usually be players are 15 to 19, are consistently showing performance potential abilities. So I think that’s the really key terminology starting to show a more consistently showing. And then kind of foundation level, which would be the players that are at the districts and clubs, you know, their young players 12 1314, in a school or club, you know, and they’re beginning to show a little bit of promise as hockey players. So that’s the level before they come to us. And then we take them into emerging, which is obviously that starting to show and then aspiring where it’s more consistent. So you could have a 17 year old, who’s showing, but not consistent, but we actually think you know, what they need, they just need some development, and they’re actually they’re going to smash, you know, under 20 ones or, you know, they’re going to be great in a few years time. They just need some, they just need something a bit different. Or you could have a 15 year old who is constantly showing and we push them into the aspiring programme. So I think it’s trying to catch the right stage for the person rather than Okay, well, you’ve aged out now and you’ve not shown this so off you go. We’re not interested anymore.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, I think that’s one of the big criticisms, I guess of Have a you know, it’s not specific to hockey or rugby or football, but that kind of format of where you haven’t reached where you need to in our timeframe. So unfortunately, Your journey has ended. And it’s actually another 12 months, they might have got there, but we have this deadline of, you need to reach it by the age of 18, or you don’t progress. And as we know, working with youth athletes, everyone’s journey is a little bit different in terms of when the penny drops or when physically they’re mature, or when they’re suddenly ready to commit to that level. But that necessarily, we don’t have necessarily the flexibility in our pathway to accommodate people with a variety of different things like that going on. So I think it’s great to have a bit more flex in a system that does you know, what you’re doing, which is brilliant. So what what within the academy set up? So we’ve got these kind of, I guess, two, two different sort of groups of individuals, those who are demonstrating and more consistently those who are maybe Sanusha, with a promise, what’s the kind of delivery of support to them? Is it just technical coaching? Is it nutrition strength conditioning, physiotherapy, what does that look
Kelly Fillingham
like? So obviously, we’re gonna first cycle of brave Academy. So we’ve got kind of, if we talk about that, that middle layer of brave Academy, we are very much focused on technical coaching, we recognise that kind of schools and clubs, you know, that they’re prepping for their games on a Saturday, you know, so it’s not, they don’t always have the time, or resources to kind of go into more more technical skills with players. So what we’re finding is what we were finding, as national coaches is we’ve got lots of players coming to us. And some of their technical skills, not primarily where it may be, should be for for the kind of stage that that we’ve put them into. So we focus a lot on technical stuff, we’ve got different focus areas that we work on that we’ve identified as coaches that we feel players need a little bit more supporting. And then we have a brave education plan that goes alongside that. So we just delivered this week, actually, it was brilliant, a performance behaviours, workshop with some of the Scotland senior women. So they were fantastic. They came on and talked to players about, you know, their journey. You know, they were really open and honest, it was it was a it was I was really impressed with, you know, how good they were and how they delivered. So they talked a lot about that they talked a lot about choices versus sacrifice, and how to help frame that a little bit. So yeah, they were fantastic. We’ve had mindfulness and how you look after yourself in sport, workshop for them. And then we’ve got some nutrition stuff coming up, we’ve got a little bit around hydration, and sleep, and how important those things are. And then we’ve got just a physical maintenance programme coming up as well. So we’ve kind of put together what we feel players need a little bit of support from away from the pitch. So a big part of the brave Academy is that as a package as much as it is, you know, on the pitch, because, you know, athletes, young players, they need a little bit of support around what those what good looks like for all of those things. And parents do, you know, we’re we’re really conscious of opening up our education stuff. So the parents, we videoed it and send it out to the parents can watch it as well. So, you know, I think that’s one of the things I’m really proud of that that we’re doing as well offering that additional support. And then our national players get, you know, even more of that, which is, you know, just just topped up on terms of what the brave Academy is getting. So, yeah, it’s definitely a big part of of what we’re trying to do. So,
Rob Anderson
I’m right in thinking that this is kind of organised regionally, as well as it is multiple regions. It’s not just one central hub. So there’s there’s players attending different venues across the country.
Kelly Fillingham
Yeah, so we’ve got the dandy devils. They’re obviously based in Dundee. We’ve got the Edinburgh lightning, and the Glasgow from the our hope is, you know, maybe we’re going to we’re going to sort of be able to expand that in a few years time. You know, and have something based in the borders and something based a little further up north. So you know, that will be that will be our hope, but we’ve got a we’ve got a kind of jumped the numbers of kids playing hockey before we we sort of think about that, because it is it’s, we want to try and make it accessible. That’s the other part of all of this, you know, hockey is a more accessible sport for everybody. You know, and coming away from from sort of just having one demographic in the sport and actually opening it up to as many as we can. So to do that, we need to we need to make sure geography is not a barrier. So that’s in our plan, kind of five year plan definitely.
Rob Anderson
I think is great because I think often you know, people are you’ll have sat through these kind of workshops as well, I’m sure in terms of long term athlete development models and different things. And very often people are like, tempted to just copy and paste. And so all this is what were they what do they do in Sweden? So we’ll do that. And it’s like, well, they’ve got different demographics, different geography, different player numbers, you can’t just copy and paste things, you kind of have to maybe look at the principles and go, Okay, what does that look like, in our area? With the players? We have? You know, we could take some things, but not everything, some things will have to, you know, kind of see how they get on. So, I think it’s great that, you know, as you pointed out, it’s it’s expanding beyond the national teams expanding beyond, you know, a central hub, et cetera. So how do how does it compare in terms of player numbers that you would have now across those three venues versus your traditional age grade setup, where maybe it’s a squad that just gets focused on what’s the difference in terms of participation numbers?
Kelly Fillingham
Gosh, this is huge. So I guess if you think about traditionally how we do it, there’d be an interdistrict competition, and then a national squad would be chosen, that national squad would probably run it 2324. And then that would be that would be it from Easter onwards. You know, what we’re doing now is we’ve got, you know, our capacity is to have 30 kids per stage per agenda in each place. So we’ve got, you know, for four groups in Edinburgh, let’s say we’ve got the aspiring and emerging boys and girls. So we would look to have 30 in each of those groups. So you’ve got your national squad, but you’ve also got, you know, all that group still still in the brave academies still working towards opportunities for later on in the summer. So we’ve just selected from the brave Academy squad to play the UK lions in the summer and a squad to go to school games in September. So traditionally, the School Games squad would be would be our national, kind of under 18. Squad. But actually, what we’re seeing is, you know, what we really want to do is give sub international level opportunity to our Prep Academy. So we they have a reason to train all year, because, you know, we train to play, you know, kids don’t train to just train, they train to play they want to play. So doing that best V best through the brave Academy and actually giving them a point of focus and saying, look, you’ve not got selected for the National stuff, but actually stay in the brave Academy keep working. And there’s this sort of international opportunity in the summer. You know, and I think that’s, that’s, I’m really proud of us doing that, because we’re keeping, what are the numbers? So gosh, my maths is not great, Rob, but we’ve got 30 kids in each stage, and each place, you know, in three areas, you know, so the numbers, the numbers speak for themselves, you know, we kept far more kids in the system than we were doing it the traditional way.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, I think that’s one of the keys, isn’t it? Because that’s one of the things when you work in talent development, you kind of realise, okay, we’re picking these kids and maybe 14, and they’re the ones that have been getting this extra input and these extra competitive opportunities. So the chance of next year, someone being able to break through without that becomes diminished, and it kind of compounds, doesn’t it? So you end up with almost the same kind of kids coming through this system. But we’re losing potential talent, because they just didn’t show up on that first trial day, or maybe, you know, they couldn’t make the second one or whatever, and you end up actually reducing your talent pool instead of keeping it as wide as possible. And that’s what kills I think it is specifically in an area like Scotland, where you have limited player numbers, you just can’t afford to do that.
Kelly Fillingham
No, we can’t. You know, and I think that we don’t think about relative age effect. You know, we don’t think about training age, you know, we don’t do a little Google poll that asks the kid did you have a good sleep the night before? Train the selection? Or did you you know, something happen with your family, we don’t know any of those things. But we expect them to rock up and turn up and, and play and, you know, they’ve got selectors sat around, you know, given a little ticker not and it’s Yeah, I think keeping players in this and we use sort of a rag rating through the year, so the players know, you know, okay, I’m green, I’m in a good place. Okay, I’m Amber, I’ve got to work on these things. Okay, I’m in a red. So and I’ve dropped a little bit and I needed a little bit of support on this and scaffolding that for a whole year, you know, is is the only way we as a smaller nation are going to are going to kind of reach our target of of world class in, in sort of 10 years time, you know, we want to be in the world’s top 10 That only happens if we have a really robust, flexible talent system.
Rob Anderson
That just reminded me of your previous job, something maybe 10 years, that’s about the right timeframe for you to go top three.
Kelly Fillingham
Yeah, yeah, no, 10 years, and then I get I didn’t get a bit twitchy. So that’s definitely, you know, I think we’ll see. It’s, it’s, it’s important. We keep reminding ourselves and I’m terrible because I like want it tomorrow. I want it done. So I think we have to remind ourselves, this is a long term approach to doing talent ID differently, and hopefully keeping people in the sport. This is not just about our top 1% This is about the domestic game in Scotland getting better and as improving youngsters so that when they’re in our domestic game, it lifts the standard of the domestic game. So this is about all those things, you know, it’s important, it’s not just about not just about our top 1%
Transcribed by https://otter.ai