Hackney Post’s Connie Dimsdale sat down with Eddie Munnelly, director of Jus Ball, for a chat about football in Hackney.
“We’re massively excited about getting back to normal,” says Eddie Munnelly, football coach and director of football consultancy Jus Ball. He is looking forward to the 29th March when children’s sports can start up again on Hackney pitches.
Current lockdown restrictions mean all face-to-face training sessions have stopped. Instead, Jus Ball coaches have been offering training sessions via Zoom, giving children weekly challenges to keep them busy.
Lockdown has been tough for football coaches and players alike. “We’ve had to lean on each other a little bit,” says Munnelly. “There are times I wake up, and I think I cannot deal with this anymore. At that point, I have to do a bit of exercise or have a chat about football with someone.”
“Zoom is great, but you need real connection and I think sports can most definitely help bring communities together,” he adds.
Munnelly set up Jus Ball in July. Munnelly and the other two directors of the consultancy, Kwesi Hayford and Michael Spencer, used to work for professional academies but left because they knew they could make more of a difference in Hackney.
Through his mentoring, Munnelly aims to help build resilient, well-rounded people: “With most successful young players we have, it’s not about what they can do on the pitch, but it’s about their response to failure, and how they move forward.”
As an ex-coach for QPR, Munnelly now mentors players, providing group and individual coaching sessions and supporting young men if professional football does not work out. Jus Ball trains footballers of all ages and stages, from four-year-old children to professionals such as Josh Maja and Mahlon Romeo. The football consultancy also works with a lot of younger players across the under 23s, 18s and 16s and below at Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and a handful of other clubs.
The coaching style at Jus Ball stresses that football is about mental training as well as physical. “We want to revolutionise the way people see player development by understanding the inner workings of the mind,” Munnelly says.
“We have our own grassroots football program called Jus Little Ballers, which is for 3-9-year-olds focusing on cognitive development, body and ball mastery and allowing them to fall in love with the game through play,” he says.
Jus Ball’s influence in the community is not limited to the pitch. “We have also given support to our friends at the charity RISE 365 by getting some of our young coaches to help support people in Hackney with food provisions during the Covid-19 pandemic,” Munnelly says.
