Tour 2014 - Global Coaching Team and Ledley in Chicago

Ledley King was back in the community with our Global Coaching team in Chicago on Friday.

After successful workshops in Seattle and Toronto, the team put on two sessions with Lemont Raiders, a local club from a suburb of Chicago.

The morning started with a 'Coach the Coaches' session before over 100 boys and girls from Raiders were split into four groups for a 'Football Workshop'.

Our coaches - Nick Hardy, Joe Staunton, Shaun Harris and Anthony Graves - put the kids through a number of fun drills with Ledley floating between, giving his valuable words of advice.

After the session kids, parents and coaches all sat down together for a briefing before Ledley answered questions from the floor.

Summing up the three legs of the Tour, Nick, Football Development Coach, said: "It's great to engage with the local communities on these Tours, the kids have responded magnificently and their energy levels and enthusiasm has been second to none.

"It's been a pleasure to work with them and we hope they've got as much out of it as we have."

Global Coaching delivered across three territories during the Tour, engaging with over 1,000 players and coaches delivering our specifically designed player and coach development model.

Additionally we held hugely successful fan activation activities at all three stadiums pre-match, delivering skill zone activities and engaging with large number of supporters leading up to kick-off.

As the playing squad flew home on Sunday, our Global Coaching team move on to Tallahassee, Florida and Dallas, Texas to work with youth clubs on further development programmes.

Lemont Raiders FC has 300 boys and girls registered to play in teams from the age of Under-7 to Under-18. Their Under-14 boys team recently made it to the National Championships of the USYNL.