CRANBERRY TWP— For 18 years, Steve Wall has been bringing a contingent of English soccer coaches and teachers to the United States to conduct youth camps.

He likes what he sees here these days.

A professor at the University of Southhampton, Wall's school year ended in England last Friday. He and fellow coaches Ian Neville and Kelly Cartwright flew to Pittsburgh the next day and began their annual English School of Soccer Camp Monday at North Boundary Park.

The camp runs through Friday. Six other coaches will arrive from England next week and Wall's staff will begin a camp at Seneca Valley High.

"There is marked improvement in soccer over here now compared to when we first started coming,"Wall said. "It's almost a generation thing now where parents who have played soccer can work with their kids.

"In the next five years, you're going to see a big change in the quality of youth soccer in the States because of that."

The English School of Soccer began in 1991 with four coaches working with 400 youngsters. Last year, the school involved 22 coaches, appearances in eight states, where they worked with 4,000 young players.

There are 46 at the North Boundary Park camp, but Wall and his staff will work with more than 1,000 during their current four-week stay in the United States, which includes a camp in Slippery Rock.

"We've concentrated on Western Pennsylvania over the past four or five years," Wall said. "The climate is better and we've become popular around here. The demographics are good."

The Seneca Valley Soccer Association, consisting of more than 1,200 players, is hosting this week's camp. The campers range in age from 5 to 13.

Wall said his school's philosophy emphasizes intensity of practice, ball familiarity and skills, and teaching at the correct level.

"Teaching soccer is not one size fits all," he said. "You have to challenge a kid, yet also make him feel successful. That's a fine line, but it's also the art of teaching."

Every instructor is a former or current soccer player, a coach and a school teacher.

Neville is in his first year as a camp instructor with Wall.

"Kids are kids, whether it's England, Spain, Holland, the U.S. — kids want to learn. Kids want to do well," Neville said.

"The biggest difference doing soccer over here is the humidity. But the atmosphere is picturesque and the soccer facilities are beautiful. We don't have many practice fields of this quality in England."

Neville said a lot more young girls are involved in soccer camps here than in England.

"We do a camp back home and it's 80 percent boys. Here, it's 50-50," he said. "I'm staying with a family here that has three girls and they are soccer mad. It's wonderful."

The camp runs from 9 a.m. to noon daily. Each instructor takes a different age group:ages 5-8, 9-12 or 13-18.

The activities include dividing campers into teams and having small-sided games of 4 on 4, 2 on 2, even 1 on 1.

"Because our practices are intense, we have a lot of short task for the kids, take a break, short task, take a break. ... The minigames help keep them interested, too,"Neville said.

Cartwright, a goalkeeper, has been coaching for eight years. She is in her second year with the English School of Soccer.

"We're teachers, so we might stop in the middle of a (small-sided) game, talk to them about what somebody just did and give immediate answers that feed their memory,"she said. "It's an effective way to teach the game.

"Soccer is a simple game, really. It's all about developing skills in a fun way. Kids have energy. Keep them interested and they'll use it in a positive way."