Cor van Dijk, football skills trainer and head of youth development at BVV Barendrecht

Born and bred in Rotterdam, I now live nearby in a town called Barendrecht. I worked at Unilever Research in Vlaardingen as a researcher until 2002. On the side I have been a football coach since 1984. Since 2002 I have worked as a full-time football coach, technical coordinator and head of youth development.

I am 'essentially' a youth coach, which means that I prefer improving young players' abilities of all ages as opposed to coaching senior teams. I started as an u16s coach at CVV Rotterdam and worked at TOGB, Feyenoord and DHC before ending up at BVV Barendrecht. At BVV Barendrecht I train the first and second team of the u14s and also coach its first team. After all, it is still a great passion to be out on the pitch with the lads. Football club BVV Barendrecht have worked with the so-called 'Coerver' practice material for years and from even an earliest footballing age, technical abilities are considered to be very important.

One of my jobs is leading internal courses for coaches and trainers. Obviously, this features football skills training and applying football skills. As a result of popular demand for 'images' of course materials, I created a DVD together with video producer Gertjan Withagen. This DVD contains more than two hours of video material. The DVD is available for skills trainers of other clubs, which enables all youth skills trainers to carry out sound skills training sessions. As a result of publishing the DVD, the enthusiastic responses and the requests for guidance when applying skills training; I conduct courses in skills training.