2025/01/01 by Hall, Andy, Teigan Wilson, Malone, Michael
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Social and Behavioral Sciences #Sport Psychology and Performance #Sport and Mega-Event Impacts #Sports Studies #Sports, Gender, and Society
paper · doi:10.17605/osf.io/stvpy
openalex publication_date 2025/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/12/19 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
INTRODUCTION Football club charities aim to improve the lives of their local community (Hamill and Morrow, 2011), by delivering programmes focused on their needs, and providing opportunities for individuals to improve their knowledge and skills set (Rowe, Karg and Sherry, 2019). This work is often focused on the key areas of education, health promotion and football activities (Hamill and Morrow 2011). For example, Cashback: Off the Bench, Football Fans in Training and Soccer Saturdays (Motherwell FCCT, 2022; Falkirk Foundation, 2023; SPFL Trust, 2024). With a particular focus often on providing opportunities to those who are excluded from other community activities, improving social inclusion within the local community (Oeckl and Morrow, 2022). For example, hosting a community hub, Festive Friends and Para football (Aberdeen FC Community Trust, 2023; Spartans CF, 2023; KGV Trust SCIO, 2024; Raith Rovers FC, 2024; SPFL Trust, 2024). The impact football club charities can have in their local area is reliant upon the prolonged engagement of participants (Parnell et al., 2013). Participant engagement can be influenced by a variety of factors including personal circumstances (Robertson et al., 2013), being in a comfortable environment (Super, Verkooijen and Koelen, 2016) and an individual's relationship with their coach (Jowett and Cockerill, 2003). In community-based settings such as football club charities and community programmes (FCCPs), ensuring the engagement and retention of participants is heavily influenced by the coaches (Mansfield et al., 2018). Coaches are the individuals who have regular contact with participants on behalf of the charities/community programmes (Crisp and Brackley, 2023). A relationship between a coach and participant as Jowett (2017) shared it is the mechanism through which coaches can effectively pass on knowledge and information to participants assisting them to improve their lives, with a positive relationship between two individuals being highlighted as having a strong correlation to commitment (r=0.85) (Aid and Jowett, 2010). Commitment alongside closeness, complementary and co-orientation have been defined as the components of an effective coach-athlete relationship within the 3+1C model of coach-athlete relationship (Jowett, 2007). The model indicates a relationship between individuals should be based upon effective communication, support for, and clear expectations of each other (Jowett, 2025) as well as a willingness to put effort into maintaining the relationship (Jowett, 2007). The coach-athlete relationship is often considered with competitive sporting environments (Jowett and Cockerill, 2003; Becker, 2009; Rhind and Jowett, 2010; Gearity and Murray, 2011).With the knowledge base of coaches expected to be up to date with the latest tactics and techniques of their specific sport to provide athletes with the optimal developmental opportunity and sporting advantage. However, competitive sports coaches must also show consideration to an athlete's feelings and be able to communicate effectively in the relationship (Wachsmuth, Jowett and Hardwood, 2018). In the competitive environment the shared goal between the coach and athlete is to achieve the best possible sporting outcome, often at the detriment of the athlete’s wellbeing (Côté and Gilbert, 2009). Within a FCCP, the goal of the coach-participant relationship is to improve the life of the participant by providing them with personal and social development opportunities, in line with the overall goal of the organisations (Oeckl and Morrow, 2022). This highlights a difference between a typical coach-athlete relationship and the coach-participant relationship within a FCCP, meaning the key factors of the coach-participant relationship and its impact on participant engagement and retention are likely to differ. Coaching within FCCPs across the UK has been previously investigated (Crisp and Brackley, 2023; Curran et al., 2014; Parnell et al., 2013; Robertson et al., 2013). However, each investigation focused on a specific programme delivered or the work of a specific charity/community programme meaning a holistic overview of coaching in the setting was not provided. Meaning consideration was not provided for how different participant demographics and programme focuses may impact the relationship between a coach and participant. With little consideration given to how the coach-participant relationship may impact participant engagement and retention in FCCP activities. Therefore, the current research aims to investigate coach perceptions of the coach-participant relationship in a SFCCP. This will be achieved by 1) Identifying the primary objectives of SFCCPs 2) Investigating the key factors which impact the coach-participant relationship in SFCCPs 3) Investigating the impact of the coach-participant relationship on engagement and retention in SFCCPs. METHOD Participants All charities and community programmes will be associated with a football team who are competing in the Scottish Premiership-League 2 in the 2024/25 season will be contacted for gatekeeper permission. If gatekeeper permission is granted, coaches from the football club charity/community programme will be included. Coaches will be over the age of 18 and can be of any employment status (volunteer, part-time, full time). Coaches will be actively involved in the delivery of at least one activity. No restriction will be placed on the length of involvement with the football club charity or community programme. Data Collection All Scottish football club charities and community programmes in Scotland associated with a club competing in the Scottish Professional Football Leagues during the 2024/25 season will be invited to participate via email. Emails will be sent to staff holding senior positions within the organisations with contact details obtained from publicly available sources. If contact details cannot be sourced, these charities will not be invited for participation. Data will be collected in the form of semi-structured interviews with participants. All interviews will follow a pre-set interview guide which will cover the main topics of demographic information, role of a coach in a football club charity or community programme and coach-participant relationship in a football club charity or community programme. Interviews will be piloted and any adjustments made to question structure, order or content prior to data collection commencing. Interviews will take place online via Microsoft Teams and will be video recorded and transcribed verbatim using the available features of Microsoft Teams. Interview transcripts will be checked against video recordings with any errors or missing dialogue amended by the interviewer Prior to data analysis commencing, member checks of transcripts will occur to ensure the information shared accurately reflect the participants views and they are happy for all information disclosed to be included in transcripts for analysis. Member checks will occur via an email containing a word document copy of the transcript and instruction of how to make any changes if required. Following member checks, transcripts will be anonymised. Following this process, the audio and video recordings of interviews will be deleted, with only the anonymised transcript being retained for analysis. Data Analysis Data analysis will be completed using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2019). A reflexive log will be completed at each stage of analysis to provide the opportunity for any potential researcher bias to be addressed and document the analysis process completed to ensure transparency. Familiarisation of data will occur through the reading and rereading of transcripts. The generation of initial codes will involve selecting extracts of data which relate to the research question and making notes around potential meanings of these. Initial themes will be created by grouping codes based on their interactions and how they relate to each other, this may also include the creation of subthemes. Themes will then be reviewed to ensure they relate to initial codes and fit in the wider context of the data set. Finally, themes will be defined and named before the final write up occurs. The initial coding and generation of themes will be completed independently by two researchers. However, the reviewing and defining of themes will be completed by multiple analysts to ensure the findings are taken directly from the data set and are considered from a variety of viewpoints. Where disagreements occur, discussions will take place until a consensus is reached. The consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ) checklist will be followed.