The Football Association Coaching Book of Soccer: Tactics And Skills By Charles Hughes
The Football Association Coaching Book of Soccer: Tactics and Skills
The Foundational, High-Stakes Tactical Manual and Structural Blueprint that Redefined English Football
The Foundational, High-Stakes Tactical Manual and Structural Blueprint that Redefined English Football
Bibliographic Specifications
- Title: The Football Association Coaching Book of Soccer: Tactics and Skills
- Author: Charles Hughes
- Publisher: British Broadcasting Corporation Ltd (BBC Books) / Queen Anne Press, London
- Publication Date: 1987
- ISBN-10: 0356151697
- ISBN-13: 9780356151697
- Edition Details: First Edition, First Printing. Official FA Coaching Manual.
- Binding: Original publisher’s premium illustrated heavy-gauge card wrappers with a protective laminate finish (paperback).
- Physical Format: Quarto (4to), 192 pages. Densely enhanced with official tactical movement charts, phase-of-play technical diagrams, pitch positioning layouts, and instructional match action sequences.
- Language: English
Official Condition Report
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The Book: Used - Very Good (VG)
- Exterior / Wraps: Die oorspronklike sagteband-buiteblaaie is in 'n baie goeie toestand. Die voor- en agterkant vertoon plat, vierkantig en behou hul oorspronklike grafiese kontras. Dit toon slegs ligte, oppervlakkige rakrywing (slightly shelf rubbed) en minimale opstoot-merke (very slight knocking) aan die uiterste agterkant se rante. Die rugkant is heeltemal perfek reguit, ongebreek en sonder enige leesplooie. Hierdie volume is duidelik met groot sorg hanteer en opgepas.
- Interior: Die teksblok is uiters stewig gebind, perfek vierkantig en baie skoon. Al 192 bladsye is volledig intact en vry van eienaarsinskripsies, onderstreeplings of biblioteekstempels. Die snykante van die papierblokke toon slegs minimale hanteermerke of ligte stoor-kolletjies (minor marks), wat getuig van minimale en versigtige blaai-blaaie.
- The Dust Jacket: Not Applicable (As Issued)
Synopsis & Historical Value
Published in 1987 by the BBC to accompany a groundbreaking television series, The Football Association Coaching Book of Soccer stands as one of the most significant, intensely debated, and influential tactical documents in the history of English football. Written by the FA’s highly controversial Director of Coaching, Charles Hughes, this official manual stripped away traditional football romance to establish a cold, data-driven, and scientific blueprint for the beautiful game.
The narrative provides an exhaustive, point-by-point tactical breakdown of Hughes's legendary and polarizing POMO (Position of Maximum Opportunity) theory, which heavily championed direct play, high-intensity pressing, and maximizing set-piece conversions based on thousands of hours of rigorous match analysis. Bypassing modern casual revisions, the book takes readers inside the formal coaching classrooms of Lilleshall, mapping out explicit training drills, passing patterns, and defensive positioning matrices designed to optimize team efficiency. For football purists, sports historians, and serious collectors of vintage sports memorabilia, this scarce first-edition quarto used collectible book acts as an indispensable primary historical archive capturing the structural turning point that shaped a generation of British coaches and players.
Author Profile: Charles Hughes
Charles Hughes (1929–2024) was a monumental and towering figure in international football coaching, sports administration, and tactical philosophy. Serving as the long-standing Director of Coaching for the English Football Association (FA) throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, his sweeping educational reforms and rigid structural doctrines reshaped the entire coaching curriculum of British sport. His methodologies, famously detailed in his later work The Winning Formula, generated immense national debate but left an undeniable legacy that heavily influenced elite managers across the globe.
Hughes’s unique combination of analytical rigor, academic methodology, and absolute devotion to primary statistical match logs ensured that his instructional books carried immense executive authority. His expert handling of technical game aesthetics, passing vectors, and spatial tactics translated the chaotic nature of pitch play into a highly polished, definitive historical record that permanently modernised global football indexing systems.
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