John Cartwright (footballer)

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John Cartwright
Personal information
Full nameJohn William Cartwright
Date of birth (1940-11-05) 5 November 1940
Place of birthBrixworth, England
Playing positionInside forward
Youth career
1956–1959West Ham United
Senior career*
YearsTeamApps†(Gls)†
1959–1961West Ham United4(0)
1961–1963Crystal Palace12(1)
1963–1964Bath City?(30)
1964–1968Wimbledon120(19)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.
† Appearances (Goals).

John William Cartwright (born 5 November 1940) is an English former professional footballer who played as an inside forward and one of England's most successful youth coaches, having been Academy Director at Crystal Palace, Youth Coach at England's U18s, Technical Director at the English PFA and FA National School of Excellence Lilleshall and former First Team Coach at Arsenal.[1]

Career

Born in Brixworth, Cartwright was a part of the famous Academy and Youth Team of West Ham United F.C. which developed many of England's best footballers, including the great Bobby Moore. During his time at West Ham, Cartwright played in the famous 1958-59 FA Youth Cup Final team alongside footballing greats such as Bobby Moore and Geoff Hurst, under the stewardship of Ted Fenton. It was through Ted Fenton that Cartwright got into coaching at an early age, whilst still playing as Fenton encouraged all the players at the Academy to take their coaching badges so that after playing they had something to fall back on.[2]

Cartwright went on to make his senior debut for West Ham, featuring in the starting lineup alongside Bobby Moore, against Everton F.C. at Goodison Park in front of over 30,000 spectators in Division One (top tier of English Football at the time) on 17 October 1959 which West Ham went on to win 1-nill.[3]

Cartwright made a four senior appearances in the Football League between 1959 and 1961 for West Ham. He then signed for Crystal Palace, making a 12 appearances in the League,[4] before dropping out to play non-league football with Bath City.[5]

After playing, Cartwright became one of the most senior and experienced youth coaches in England, and has since been described as 'A Rebel',[6] having won the FA Youth Cup two years running with Crystal Palace in the 1970s, and as a result, produced future international players, whilst attracting much attention for his views and opinions on the current standards of football coaching in England by The Football Association. In an article based on the recent success of the Brazilian National Teams, Cartwright featured in The Independent in reference to 'Coaching talent out of kids', Cartwright at the time was the Professional Footballers' Association's Technical Director.[7] This was followed by an article in the Telegraph two years later, titled "The Guru who is not afraid to upset the apple cart", Cartwright contended that the Football Association's coaching system, after 18 years of centres of excellence and academies and for all its revamping by technical director Howard Wilkinson, still fails to put individual skill first and churns out stereotyped team players as a result. Cartwright was previously the FA Technical Director of the famous Lilleshall National School of Excellence, which is where he came to disagree so violently with the Football Association's controversial former director of coaching and education, Charles Hughes, that he resigned after two years in the job.[8] When he resigned, Cartwright told the FA that their School of Excellence would never achieve its original objective, saying "I went there thinking it would be great, working with the best young players. I thought they would start at a high level - the equivalent of being ready to go to university - but when I got there I found they couldn't pass the ball, control it or run with it to the level they should have reached".[9]

Cartwright, who was once England's first full-time Youth Coach[6] and a former First Team Coach at Arsenal F.C.[10] has spent a life-time advocating a change in the coaching methods used to develop talent in English Football. Despite being one of the most successful youth coaches around, having guided the England U18s Team to win the European Championship in 1980 and finish fourth in the World Championships the following year, he has received much criticism for his views on the FA and coaching in general, which made him an outcast from the FA.

In a recent article by the Daily Mail featuring the success of MK Dons Academy in producing talent, Cartwright was mentioned alongside Dan Micciche (Assistant Academy Manager) at MK Dons as having an influence on Micciche coaching philosophy, as Micciche started at Crystal Palace where Cartwright was Academy Manager, with Carwright advocating variations of games played in tight spaces as a training tool for developing football players.[11]

Since his resignation from the FA he set up Premier Skills, a company which delivers coach education and player development courses to help develop great coaches and greater players[8]

Cartwright is also the author of best-selling book 'Football for the Brave' which is endorsed by the then Fulham Manager and now, current England Manager Roy Hodgson.

References

  1. ↑ "Deabte: Is second-rate youth coaching hurting England? | Football". The Guardian. 2006-11-15. Retrieved 2012-11-06. 
  2. ↑ Hillier, Roger. ". Retrieved on 2012-08-13.
  3. ↑ "Everton v West Ham United, 17 October 1959". Retrieved 2012-08-13. 
  4. ↑ "Crystal Palace Player Database - John Cartwright". Retrieved 2012-08-13. 
  5. ↑ Hugman, Barry J. (2005). The PFA Premier & Football League Players' Records 1946-2005. Queen Anne Press. ISBN 1-85291-665-6. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Sale, Charles (2010-01-26). "Charles Sale's Sports Agenda: Sir Trevor Brooking echoes FA coaching rebel John Cartwright". The Daily Mail. Retrieved on 2012-08-13.
  7. ↑ Jones, Ken (1998-03-16). "Football: Coaching the best out of the next Pele" The Independent. Retrieved on 2012-08-13.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Cartwright, John (2002-03-22). "The guru who is not afraid to upset the apple cart". The Telegraph. Retrieved on 2012-06-12.
  9. ↑ Fox, Norman (1993-11-21). "Football: Can we have our ball games back, please?: School sport is out. As Britain absorbs the impact of World Cup humiliation a crisis on our playing fields underlies a pressing need to return to basics: Norman Fox explains how national failure reflects a deeper social malaise". The Independent. Retrieved on 2012-08-13.
  10. ↑ Cartwright, John (2007-11-25). "England managers need direction". The Telegraph. Retrieved on 2012-08-13.
  11. ↑ Samuel, Martin (2013-02-06). "Small is beautiful at Milton Keynes... and it could make us play like Brazil". Daily Mail. Retrieved on 2013-02-12.

Further reading

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