Coach's bag checklist: ready for every session.
The coach's bag is the one thing that comes to every session. Balls and cones are obvious. The things that matter most when something goes wrong are easy to forget. Here is a list in four parts.
1. First aid
Either the team first-aid kit itself, or a small match bag that lives in your coach's bag. A Basic kit has 26 items, including:
- Plasters, sterile dressings and gauze
- Saline pods for rinsing grazes and eyes
- Instant cold packs and resealable bags for ice
- Elastic and triangular bandages
- Nitrile gloves and hand sanitiser
- Foil blanket and a CPR face shield
- Scissors, tweezers and a tick remover
The full list is in the Sports first-aid kit checklist.
2. Emergency details
In an emergency, the hardest part is often information. Keep these on a card in the bag:
- The local emergency number (for example 999 or 112 in the UK, 911 in the US and Canada, 000 in Australia, 113 in Norway).
- The venue's full address and postcode, and the entrance an ambulance should use.
- Where the nearest defibrillator (AED) is, and whether it is reachable at training times. In many countries OpenAEDMap shows registered locations; always check on site.
- The nearest emergency department.
- How to reach parents or emergency contacts, kept the way your club's safeguarding policy says.
3. Session kit
- Balls, a pump and a spare needle
- Bibs and cones or markers
- Whistle and stopwatch
- Session plan, and the team sheet on match days
- Spare laces, a spare pair of socks and a spare water bottle
- Black bags for wet kit and litter
4. For you
- A charged phone, and a power bank
- Waterproof jacket and warm layer
- Water and a snack
- Sunscreen in summer
- Your coaching and first-aid certificates, if your club asks you to carry them
No medicines in the coach's bag. Players with an inhaler or adrenaline auto-injector bring their own to every session.
After every session
Take two minutes. What was used from the first-aid kit? Write it down or tell whoever refills it. Wet tape and empty cold-pack wrappers left in a bag are how kits run empty. Then see the Match day checklist for the bigger days.
Know what's in the bag without opening it
With a Benchkit QR sticker on the kit, anyone who uses something taps it in 10 seconds. Every coach sees the same refill list, and the same QR shows the emergency card with the local number and nearest AED. Free for teams.
Set up your kit, freeQuestions
What should a coach carry in their bag?
A first-aid kit or match bag, an emergency card (local number, venue address, nearest defibrillator), session kit such as balls, a pump, bibs, cones and a whistle, and personal items: a charged phone, waterproofs and water.
Should a coach carry medicines for players?
No. Team and coach kits should not contain medicines. Players bring their own prescribed medicine, such as an inhaler or adrenaline auto-injector.
What emergency information should a coach have?
The local emergency number, the venue address and ambulance entrance, the nearest defibrillator and emergency department, and a way to reach emergency contacts in line with your club's policy.
Sources
First-aid information, not medical advice. Kit lists are guidance: what you carry should match the training of the people using it. A first-aid course (for example from St John Ambulance or the Red Cross in your country) is the best preparation. In an emergency, call your local emergency number.