"The England Patient"
This Horizon programme on BBC Two, 9.00pm Thursday
23 May 2002, while ostensibly about football was really an application
of Sports Science much of which could be applied to archery. Below
follows the BBC's description of the programme. There are links
to Sports Science sites at the bottom and a link to the BBC's transcript
of the programme [although the transcript has not yet been posted
at 28 May].
Although there was nothing in the programme that
was new it did display some of the mental techniques used in modern
sport and showed the importance of skills such as goal setting and
visualization.
Steve
BBC
Advert for the programme
The
England football manager, Sven-Göran
Eriksson, believes that modern soccer
matches are not won on the pitch, but
inside people's minds. This film examines
not just how Eriksson got inside his players’
brains, but how he is now starting nothing
short of a revolution in English football
thinking.
Eriksson's plan, devised
with sports psychologist Dr Willi Railo, has two critical
elements. These are to banish the crippling effects of the fear
of failure from the
minds of the England players, and to encourage them to train mentally
as well as
physically to reach the highest levels of performance - dubbed playing
in 'the zone'.
Neurologists and psychologists
from some of Britain's
most prestigious universities believe anxiety and the fear
of failure can make top professionals turn in performances
like amateurs, and that Eriksson and Railo have a way to
help the England team endure the pressure.
Coping with pressure
Their view is that England's
football past has been dogged by fear of failure. Piling
on pressure and relying on patriotism to get people to perform doesn't
work when -
at heart - it's just 11 footballers taking on 11. If players accept
they could lose (and
that it's alright when they do) then they'll be less nervous and
less prone to what's
called 'choking'. When sportspeople choke, familiar instincts are
overwhelmed by
pressure.
Monitoring shows that
people use different parts of the
brain to perform actions which they are learning and those
which are second nature. If the brain reverts to its learning
mode, motor skills are constrained and that 89th minute
penalty kick goes right over the bar.
Visualisation is fundamental
to making sure people play to their best at all times.
As far the brain is concerned, there's little difference between
practising a
movement and just thinking through it. By thinking in advance just
how intense the
pressure could be, Eriksson's players can avoid choking when critical
moments
arise.
Architects of their
own success
Eriksson has a further
psychological ace to play. For all
his talk and motivation, he knows he's not there on the
pitch. To carry his thinking onto the field, he relies on
so-called cultural architects, players whose thinking is so
close to his own that they do his bidding without even realising.
The captain, David
Beckham, is clearly one architect; the team keeps secret just whom
the others
might be.
Sports psychology cannot
predict whether England will win the World Cup.
However, it does show that - for once - England are going into a
major competition
with an unprecedented degree of psychological preparedness, a critical
advantage
that the side has never boasted before. Thirty years of hurt may
soon be over.
©BBC
BBC
version of this page [with pictures!!]
. . . Transcript
of programme
Football
Science . . . Sports
Science at Edinburgh University
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Stortford Archery Club