Firstly I want to apologise for the lack of posts over the last month or so. I have had a very busy summer and I have had some health issues to deal with as well.

I am now back fully in the swing of things and this time of year I am doubly focused on soccer. The English Premier League has recently kicked off and alongside that, my college soccer team reported for pre season training yesterday and we had our first practices today.

My beloved Blackburn Rovers look terrible and if I wasn’t such a born and bred supporter I would really have lost interest in them by now. However, they are still the first team I look for on www.skysports.com/football and Fox Soccer Channel.

Today we finally had our players out on the field after a very long and arduous recruitment process. We added 16 new players to the team made up of college transfers, freshmen and players from England, Singapore, Jamaica, Bosnia and New Zealand as well as players from the USA.

We had been counting down the days to get them out onto the pitch and finally today it all came together.

We had two fantastic practices, the first one focused on basic passing and controlling technique, the second one on passing and shooting. Both practices went really well and the players are buzzing.

If you would like me to share with you the practice plans for both of the practices, send me an email and I will gladly do so.

We also had to team meetings and covered topics such as goal setting and preparation for practices and games.

What did I learn today? Firstly, coaching is like riding a bike. Even though I have no use or feeling in my lower right leg and foot, I was able to immediately get back into coaching and helping my players. Of course I had my assistant coaches carry out the demonstrations for me, but I believe it still worked.

I reaffirmed that there is so much joy in following your bliss. When I am out there on the field with my players I feel like I belong. That is what I am meant to do and it feels fantastic. I live and breathe this game and I enjoy helping these young players get better.

I am counting down the hours until tomorrow’s next practices. Just got the boring stuff to do like shower, eat and sleep and then in the morning the boots will be on and I will be out there in my element.

I will share with you tomorrow the coaching points, what we did well and what needs further work.

Stick around with us on this journey, follow our progress and enjoy the season with us.