At the top of their game

SPORT is big business these days, and psychologists are increasingly involved (either directly or indirectly) on the training pitch and in the dressing room. This very hands-on day of presentations and exercises, organised by the British Psychological Society, the Football Association and the British Association of Sport and Exercise Science, showed some reasons why.

David Lavallee and Beth Pummell (Loughborough University, UK) opened the day by discussing the importance of transitions in football (injuries, relocation, changes in competition level, de-selection, retirement). Lavallee reported that across 14 studies, 20 per cent of athletes experienced psychological adjustment difficulties associated with sport-related transitions. He used the 2004 Athens men's coxless four team as an example of how they succeeded in reaching their goal of winning the gold medal by coping successfully with injuries and changes to the make-up of the team. Then the audience split into groups for a case study using a systems approach to young player development.

Ex-England `Psycho' Stuart Pearce used the Sex Pistols, others (according to Loughborough University's Chris Harwood) use anything from Abba to U2 to get themselves in the right frame of mind before a game. Harwood's forte is adding a personalised script to the music, to enhance motivation, mood, concentration and confidence in the build up to the big match or to relax, recover and reflect after it. Harwood draws on a range of theories, from Bandura's self-efficacy theory to Holmes and Collins's PETTLEP approach. This encourages players to get as close as they can to the real thing in their imagery, through Physical, Environmental, Task, Timing, Learning, Emotional and Perspective aspects. The example that Harwood played mixed stirring evocations of the matchday environment and performance required with music from Braveheart and Gladiator. It was impressive stuff - perhaps it should be, given the amount of time Harwood says they take to prepare, time which is not always financially rewarded in the lower leagues. Harwood also admitted the importance of team culture in the acceptance of such techniques: he said that there will always be the third who want sports psychology, the third who aren't so sure, and the third who don't want anything to do with it. Sport psychologists should be thankful for MP3 players and headphones.

Richard Mullen (Brunel University, UK) gave a good example of the PETTLEP approach to the physical aspects of imagery when he recalled how the notoriously daft goalkeeper John Burridge used to watch Match of the Day in his full kit. Mullen ran through ex-England goalie Ray Clemence's analysis of what makes a good number 1: concentration, commitment (something Mullen said they often need less of not more), confidence, courage (mental and physical), composure and communication. The last aspect is so important that many keepers say their best game is when they don't touch the ball. Another England keeper, David James, was attending the event and gave some interesting insights into the social structure that he needs for practising, and how even the tiles in his shower are roped into imagery sessions.

Finally, Robert Forzoni (Brunel University, UK) described the use of personal motivational videos in his work with Commonwealth boxers, West Ham United and others. Videos are an `athlete-friendly media' that can be used as a source of inspiration, as a pre-competition distraction, or to introduce and reinforce sport psychology or an academy. For a coach, just seeing themselves in action can lead to behaviour change (e.g. the increased use of open-ended questions) through self-modelling. One of Forzoni's examples, a painstakingly produced mesh of football action and Al Pacino's `inches' speech from the film Any Given Sunday, suggested that he was both an excellent motivator and frustrated filmmaker!