Darren Laver

Darren Laver

Brian Laudrup (left), Darren Laver (Middle), Lars Høgh (Right)
Personal information
Full name Darren John Laver
Date of birth (1981-09-12) 12 September 1981
Place of birth Yeovil, Somerset, England

Darren Laver (born 12 September 1981, in Yeovil, England) is a sport scientist, former semi professional soccer player, sports lecturer and coach. He is recognised as one of the leading Street Soccer coaches in the world.

Early career

Laver started his career at Yeovil Town Football Club [1] where early on he sustained a leg injury forcing him to leave professional football.[2] In light of this event, Laver went on to study sports science at the University of Leeds where he perused a deeper interest in sports science and fitness conditioning. With a belief that the traditional coaching methods he had experienced as a player could be improved upon, Laver began developing his own coaching ethos based upon Street Soccer; "The Street Soccer concept".[3] A player-centric method of coaching that aims to coach players in their attitudes toward the game, taking responsibility for their own development, focussing on creativity and applying these insights to become better soccer players.

The International Street Soccer Association

In 2008, Laver set up the ‘International Street Soccer Association’ (ISSA). Using the ISSA as a platform, Laver has "dedicated his life"[4] to coaching players to improve their creative skill. The company provides training programmes and Street Soccer events for amateur, youth and professional clubs, councils and communities with licensee's across the world.[5] The companies influence has grown to be a near global phenomenon, Thomas Cook Group run ISSA programmes in many of their holiday destinations across Europe. ISSA Creative Skill Camps run East coast to West across the USA every year. Darren has worked with UEFA.com Union of European Football Associations providing skill training tutorials, Danish International soccer player, Brian Laudrup, for whom he was selected to run a series of events and exhibitions across Denmark. For SoccerEx in Africa Darren exhibited his skills and in the UK engaged with young adults for the BBC 'Your Game' tour.

Multimedia & Video Games

Laver provided his soccer skills for the skills training DVD "Ball Fusion" (Europe) and "Project Street Soccer" (USA),[6] An industry best seller. He has also been recognised for his talent in a variety of published books including "Street Football" published by Wayland in 2013 distributed worldwide. In 2011, Laver was voted best Street Soccer player in the United Kingdom, selected to be one of 45 star players to feature in EA Sports FIFA Street (2012 video game).

References

  1. ↑ Modern Sports Stories Publication, published 09/09/2013. Staff interview with Darren Laver, Page 96.
  2. ↑ Modern Sports Stories Publication, published 09/09/2013. Staff interview with Darren Laver, Page 96.
  3. ↑ The International Street Soccer Website. http://www.internationalstreetsoccer.com/history/
  4. ↑ Modern Sports Stories Publication, published 09/09/2013. Staff interview with Darren Laver, Page 96.
  5. ↑ http://www.internationalstreetsoccer.com/
  6. ↑ http://www.soccerlocker.com/store/PRO-STSOC!PREMI/PROJECT+STREET+SOCCER+DVD

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, May 05, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.