ABSTRACT
Niche sports, such as croquet, lack the financial support to embed coaching programmes and update pedagogical approaches, relying mainly on expert players acting as ‘expert’ coaches. Research suggests that workshops introducing new athlete-centred pedagogies such as Game Sense, while highly valued by coaches and often implemented in part, tend to give way to traditional direct coaching methods. In 2014 the Croquet Association of the UK introduced the concept of coaching Pods. A Pod is both a group of like-minded people in regions across the UK with a facilitator, and a set of documentation to support the facilitator to deliver a two- to three-hour coaching session on a defined topic. The pod documentation provides guidance for the facilitator, games-based practices to implement the coaching material and example questions to guide learning. The Pods are supported by a Performance Director who liaises with local facilitators supporting them to deliver tactical and technical material using athlete-centred pedagogies. This chapter describes the development and structure of croquet coaching pods, using the experiences of performance directors, coaches and pod participants.
