Frank Anderson: Long Throw-In Coach
- Anderson has previously worked with Partick Thistle and trained their players to deliver long throw-ins with distance, accuracy, and power
Specialist coach and Football Careers client Frank Anderson is adamant he can train any player to become a throw-in machine.
And Anderson is so confident in his training technique that he is willing to work initially with a club for free to prove his methodology works.
Anderson has previously worked with Partick Thistle and trained their players to deliver long throw-ins with distance, accuracy, and power.
Now the long-throw coach is keen to work with a club to coach their players to do this and develop an extra attacking threat for their game.
While it is common to work on set-pieces in football, the training of throw-ins has been overlooked: but Anderson wants to change this, and he believes he can train a player to become the David Beckham of throw-ins.
He has invented a method that involves injecting footballs with a special liquid to make them heavier while still retaining their bounce.
Anderson will observe a player’s throwing technique, give them feedback, and with the special heavier footballs, will train them to deliver longer and more accurate throw-ins.
Anderson said: “I am willing to go into a club and work for free initially to show what I can do. Two training sessions with me and I will enhance a player’s accuracy and power, they will become the David Beckham of long throw-ins.
“When a player takes a corner or a free-kick, they will put their hand up to signal what they are going to do. You never see that with a throw-in because most players when they take it are just throwing it in and don’t know where it’s going to go.
“I want to change that, so they will make a signal it’s going front-post, penalty spot, back-post and they will deliver that with accuracy.
“I’ll go to any club in Britain, pay my own expenses to get there and will coach their players to deliver accurate long throw-ins.
“I will work with players, I will observe their technique when they are delivering a throw-in, some might be on the front foot, some might be on their back foot, some their shoulders might be up. So I will help them to get the technique right.”
Anderson insists he can have a player throwing the ball further within 30 minutes of working with them and after a week, a player with good technique will be delivering throw-ins into the penalty area with an accuracy and pace to trouble any defence.
He said: “I am so confident with my methods and my ability to train people to deliver accurate long throw-ins that I can take a player who has the technique to deliver a throw-in and increase his distance and enhance his accuracy in a week.
“And for a player that does not have the technique right I will improve them within two weeks. I am that confident because I have done it, I know my method works. I have done this for players who have never thrown a ball in their life and when I had finished working with them they were all able to throw the ball to the near post.
“I know my methods works and I can get results in just half an hour working with a player. I will help them to get the stance right, get the technique right and will get instant results.”
Inquisitive Anderson came up with the idea after watching Rory Delap hurl balls into the penalty area from throw-ins when he was playing for Stoke City and started to devise a training technique to enable players to do the same.
He said: “I actually had a lightbulb moment when I was watching a game on television, Stoke City were playing Hull City, and Rory Delap was launching long-throws. His long throws were such a prominent attacking weapon for Stoke.
“Watching Rory got me thinking about whether I could come up with an invention, a process to train players to deliver a long throw-in with distance, accuracy, and power.
“I’ve always been inquisitive and have invented many products, so I came up with a process to inject a combination of different liquids into a ball to make it heavier. I worked on it constantly and got it right.
“I invented a machine to do this and depending on how much was injected into the ball I could then manage the weight of the ball, but the ball would still retain its bounce despite the injection of the liquid.
“And the key is repetition. Some coaches have tried this with medicine balls as they are heavier but my method is far better as the ball retains its bounce, unlike a medicine ball, and it will come back to you.”
Find out more about Frank Anderson in his Football Careers brochure CV.