Danny McGaw

We are fortunate to have Danny McGaw working with both teams for our 2009 season.

There is a wealth of soccer knowledge you can learn from this guy that can help you take your game to the next level.

Check out his story.......

Danny McGaw hails from England.

 He grew up living for football, in family that lived for football, in a city that lives for football. Manchester...

Like many kids in England Danny started playing as soon as he could walk, with his father and his older brother, then with his friends in the street.  When he was 4 years old he joined a local Sunday team called Deans Sports, this team pretty much stayed together until he was 16.   This was the building block from which all other opportunities came.

    He was selected to represent his city when he was 14 with a team called Salford Boys. In two years together the team collected 9 trophies, including a trip to the quarterfinals in the National tournament, this was a great team. Seven players went on to sign young pro contracts.

From this team Danny was selected to play for Greater Manchester County…these are major scouting grounds.  He played central defensive. His partner was a young man named Wes Brown who now plays for Manchester United and England.  This partnership carried through to the next stage of selection for the Northwest of England.  This team is purely formed as a scouting ground for top England schoolboys.  If selected the player travels to Keele University for five days of training and matches against the best in the country within their age group.  Danny was selected on the team along with Wes Brown, Steven Gerrard, Michael Owen, Michael Ball, just to name the superstars. 

      Danny's professional affiliation began when he was 9 years old when Crystal Palace offered him a place at their northern youth academy.  They played no matches, just trained twice a week working on fundamentals.

 Two years later Blackburn Rovers offered him a similar opportunity.  This ran until he was 14 when he signed a “schoolboy contract” with Bolton Wanderers.  This was his first real taste of representing a professional club.  Those formative years put players under the microscope as clubs decide who they want to offer young professional contracts upon leaving school at 16. 

When Danny left school he signed with a local professional club called Bury (then in the Championship) This was full time football. He trained 5 days and played a match on Saturday.  He spent two very hard years like this, learning a lot about himself, and what it takes to be successful as a pro athlete. 

Late in the second year he was diagnosed with a herniated disk in his lower back.  The club surgeon recommended the disk be removed.  Upon consulting a private specialist it was decided that back surgery at 18 was too great a risk so he hung up his playing boots. 

Now his love for the game is expressed though coaching, to pass on just a little of the joy he was given as a young man.