Grassroots Footy

[boltonboris]

Anybody involved in it in any way? Parent, player, coach etc.. Let's have your stories and and updates in here.

Personally, I stopped playing 11-a-side when I hit 32. Took a lot of my weekend up, both in terms of playing time and the fact that I'd feel like I'd been hit by a bus on Sundays as my body could no longer cope with either impact injuries and soft tissue injuries.

A year ago I started coaching - Probably forced into it, in order to give my son an opportunity to keep playing after a pretty bad experience with his first team at u7. Sacked that off due to a couple of bad kids and toxic parents, so now just a proud father supporting my 2 kids in their footy journey's and both are thriving.

Putting this thread up, so footy parents, players and coaches can let us know how they're getting on

This weekend

Son's team 3-3 (no goals for the first time since he signed his new team - Was 4 in 4)
Daughters Grassroots team won 3-1 in the league and she played for Salford Schools against East Riding Schools in Cottingham, E.R yesterday which was a heavy 6-1 defeat against an exceptional side

[Worthy4England]

I've just purchased additional bedsheets. Good luck with it mate.

[boltonboris]

I've just purchased additional bedsheets. Good luck with it mate.

[dave the minion]

I coached my son's team from U6-U12s, when our team fell apart. Partly (mainly?) loved it, but now equally loving not doing it and just being able to watch my lad play rather than having to manage the team.

We were lucky and never had too much toxicity from parents, but the politics behind the scenes at the club and among the various teams we had at our age group definitely surprised me

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Did my time - five or six seasons coaching a girls' team - wrote loads of blogs about it if you're very bored

[boltonboris]

Did my time - five or six seasons coaching a girls' team - wrote loads of blogs about it if you're very bored

Yes. Please link me up!!

[TANGODANCER]

Had great hopes my grandson would go the way of The Whites. He took up amateur boxing.

[Prufrock]

Still playing at 36! For the uni old boys team. Joined 12 years ago when I moved back to the smoke. Hated the captain so started a new then 6s. We built a good side, made some mates for life. We got promoted up becoming the 3s then COVID severed our links with the uni and lots of people lost the habit of playing Saturdays. Last year we were the ones and struggled to get two teams out.

This year we've finally got some links with recent graduates. We lost our first league game on sat (I'm in Malta ATM so didn't play) but signs are looking good the new lads enjoyed it. Plan is to get us back to three teams next year with a regular stream of grads and build the club back up (and I can "drop down the leagues" but still keep playing).

Coaching I did a lot as a team. Managed a u11s team while doing my a-levels, then coached several of the other teams (including my kid brother) in the two years back home after uni.

Loved it, and would get back involved if I ever have kids, though that's not looking too likely.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Did my time - five or six seasons coaching a girls' team - wrote loads of blogs about it if you're very bored

Yes. Please link me up!!

https://teddingtonathletic.blogspot.com/

Starts with the last-ever match report but you can dig back through five seasons of history on the right.

[boltonboris]

Still playing at 36! For the uni old boys team. Joined 12 years ago when I moved back to the smoke. Hated the captain so started a new then 6s. We built a good side, made some mates for life. We got promoted up becoming the 3s then COVID severed our links with the uni and lots of people lost the habit of playing Saturdays. Last year we were the ones and struggled to get two teams out.

This year we've finally got some links with recent graduates. We lost our first league game on sat (I'm in Malta ATM so didn't play) but signs are looking good the new lads enjoyed it. Plan is to get us back to three teams next year with a regular stream of grads and build the club back up (and I can "drop down the leagues" but still keep playing).

Coaching I did a lot as a team. Managed a u11s team while doing my a-levels, then coached several of the other teams (including my kid brother) in the two years back home after uni.

Loved it, and would get back involved if I ever have kids, though that's not looking too likely.

Age is nothing if you're fit and have energy.. Glad to see you're still playing at 'your age' Pru.. I still dabble with the odd game now and then and my phone still rings whenever the local vets team need a ringer, but I very rarely do it. Not enough anyway!

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I (at 50) play most Mondays but only in a scratch game - haven't played in a league since the old London Whites days at the turn of the century...

It's mostly dads my age but also increasingly their teenage offspring, which can become tiring...

[KeyserSoze]

Not as involved in it as I used to be, but hoping to get back into it in the new year.

I really didn't like playing as a kid. I wasn't the most athletic or coordinated child and found it quite unpleasant playing in front of shouty parents/coaches and being shunted out to left back for the sole reason of being left footed. A lack of opportunity at school (very much part of 'kids you stick in the corner to doss about while the team does actual training' group) led me to sort of forget about organised football outside of random five a side.

I only really started playing regular football at uni, so it was a pleasant surprise to find that I wasn't completely useless but actually good at some things and not good at others. I went to uni at Bath, during the time when TeamBath were trying to break into the top leagues by buying players and sticking them on mickey mouse courses. This had the trickle down making all their uni teams stacked and completely inaccessible to most people going for tryouts. The inter-department games then became incredibly competitive as a result, meaning I was very lucky to play with some of the most talented people I've had the chance to and learned a lot from them. Shout out to my old captain Jon especially, knew how to get the best out of his players (take notes, Ian)

After uni eventually I moved to the smoke when Pru very kindly asked me to come along to his team, which I enjoyed very much and came to appreciate much more after the two times I left London (2015 and two years ago). The time after 2015 was spent playing amateur football in New York, which was very fun.

I'm moving back to London next year and hope to keep going at by-then the grand age of 37. Had a minor reminder of my mortality last week however when during 7-a-side i tore my calf making a run. I'm not taking it as a sign to hang the boots up just yet, but maybe actually do the warm ups properly and maybe dabble in some yoga

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

@coaches: An old colleague of mine has started a podcast called "It's Only Kids Football" about coaching, well, kids' football. As he's ex-FourFourTwo you might get some names popping by - like Charlie Austin. https://linktr.ee/itsonlykidsfootball

[boltonboris]

2 belting games for the kids this weekend

Sons u9 team drew 4-4
Daughters u12 team drew 2-2.

Both games were really competitive with evenly matched teams going proper toe to toe.

We heard that one of the games in her league had to be abandoned due to the behaviour of a coach and some parents who disagreed with some decisions the 16 year old ref gave... Mind blowing

[Mar]

Good thread Boris.
I did a 6 year coaching stint coaching under U13s to U18s with my stepson's team.

My 2nd youngest has started getting into football lately (hadnt shown an interest till the summer) and has just signed up for a team this weekend, first training session tonight for an U12s team. We've been doing football practice outside of a team and showing him a thing or two so it'll be interesting to see how he gets on.

My youngest is keen but we've got to figure timing out before that happens.


Not quite back to coaching grass roots, but i'd imagine i'll be in and around it a bit more nowadays.

[boltonboris]

Good thread Boris.
I did a 6 year coaching stint coaching under U13s to U18s with my stepson's team.

My 2nd youngest has started getting into football lately (hadnt shown an interest till the summer) and has just signed up for a team this weekend, first training session tonight for an U12s team. We've been doing football practice outside of a team and showing him a thing or two so it'll be interesting to see how he gets on.

My youngest is keen but we've got to figure timing out before that happens.


Not quite back to coaching grass roots, but i'd imagine i'll be in and around it a bit more nowadays.

1 season coaching was enough for me. A bad experience with a couple of players with behavioral problems and a parent, made it stressful and it wasn't worth my time anymore.

I still get dragged into helping out, which I don't mind every now and then. Really hope your lad enjoys it and gets an environment that will be patient with him as he learns the ropes!

My lad is 8 now and in u9's. His first ever team at u7 gave him about 1hrs playing time in a full season. Quite appalling looking back. Especially considering they lost nearly every game they played anyway! He's thriving now. Banging goals in. Getting a bit lazy with his tracking back, bit he's having fun and that's all that matters

[Prufrock]

One thing I do not miss about kids football is the insanity is brings in certain coaches and parents.

We play a decent standard of 11 a side now with adults, but it's still pay to pay so everyone gets a minimum of 45 minutes. Only bringing a kid on for ten minutes is mad, especially at U7s!

Too many involved thing they're Pep and their job is to win instead of developing kids and most importantly getting them to fall in love with the game.

[Worthy4England]

It's little different in other sports tbf. Didn't do football as a young 'un, but did rugby and cricket, and the same things exist. I'm sure some folks don't want to see their better little Messi's go to the club that's pot collecting when they're of an age. The way we tried to get round it was to arrange lots of fixtures (requires a lot of hard work) so we could effectively field 2 teams.. tough ask though.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Too many involved thing they're Pep and their job is to win instead of developing kids and most importantly getting them to fall in love with the game.

This.

I loved making our girls flexible footballers - we played several different formations, sometimes forced by circumstance, sometimes to get the best out of them, sometimes just to give them wider experience; of the 20 or so players we used, only two (a centre-forward and a centre-back) could only play one position. Every single other girl played in at least two, often more, positions during that five years. They weren't scared of trying new things, and that should do them well in other teams.

On the pitch, we did well - absolutely smashed the first season winning every league game, and were immediately hoisted into the top flight alongside teams like Wimbledon and Palace. That was obviously harder but we still tended to finish top-four and reached two cup finals.

However, far more importantly, what we said all the way through - to the girls, to the parents - was that we wouldn't judge how successful we'd been until they were 25. If they were still playing then, we'd know we'd given them a lifelong love.

[boltonboris]

2 goals for the lad in a 6-2 defeat (scoreline was really not suggestive of the game) - We had a few words about workrate on the way home - "but Dad, I scored both our goals" - "Easy to do that when you don't enter your own half of the pitch" etc etc...

Technically, he's coming on leaps and bounds. Ball security, ball hiding, passing. It's the other side of the game he needs to develop, which was the complete opposite last year..

Daughter won 2-1 against the team that beat them in the cup final at the Toughsheet last year. Redemption tasted sweet
The most obvious offside goal allowed to stand for the oppo and our girls had a shot that went in the corner but bounced back out off the bar keeping it down at the bottom. Ref said no goal on the advice of the home teams coach. But it didn't matter in the end

Liverpool away for her on Friday night for Salford Schools. Should be a tough one :-/