doing it for the kids:
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Posted: November 9th 2009
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The club with which I’m so heavily involved is the biggest in the county. Some have suggested it may even be the biggest in the country, one of the biggest in Europe...and so we could go on, like a kid learning to write his address for the first time, and adding the world, the universe, the galaxy and so on at the end.
Not big because we’re part of a huge adult club that’s been going for years...in fact it’s the opposite, our oldest team is u19s, and whereas many adult clubs debate whether they should start a youth section, our debate is, with the club now nearly 20 years old and lots of ex-players out there, whether we should start an adult side.
We’ve got so big due to an ‘open door’ policy. The club’s raison d’etre is to provide football for as many local youngsters as it can, regardless of anything, including perceived ability. The odd practicality can provide a hurdle, eg. having sufficient parental volunteers to run squads, or being able to access enough pitches and training facilities to serve our ever-growing number of teams. Therefore we do have a club waiting list – I administer it, and on occasion still have to give out the ‘no room at the inn’ message, but as a rule we shoehorn as many kids in as we can.
Such numbers mean 3, 4, sometimes even 5 teams an age group...and the inevitable questions as to how best to split those teams. Streaming? Friendship groups? Schools? All have their pros & cons, their supporters and naysayers, their complications. Amongst said complications are balancing what the kids want with what the parents want (or what one may think the other wants); the volunteers (I often say to advocates of streaming, what are the chances if we run 4 teams at an age group that the 4 volunteer managers will have kids who fall neatly into ‘A, B, C & D’ boxes?); and the fact that kids’ views change as they mature, eg the average 6 year old wants to be in a team with his mates, the average 14 year old wants to play at a level he’s comfortable at...and in the intervening years they can get very confused.
The rapid growth of the club has also caused its complications, not least of which is many of the teams within it act more like franchises than part of the club. And so with the Saturday morning club for 7s and unders which I have written about before, I’ve been charged with coming up with a ‘blueprint’ that can serve the club for years to come, killing off the franchisees, bringing back more of a club feel and keeping 50+ kids per age group happy all in one hit.
Smaller clubs (ie. the vast majority) don’t have such issues. Few locally have more than two teams per age group, most have just the one. How they select kids for that one team I don’t know for sure...I’ve heard of one or two who have trials at u7 (yes, you read correctly, that’s u7)...teams with small catchment areas are often happy just to get enough players to fill a squad...but we have a unique opportunity to do something different. Doing it is one thing... doing it well has been the cause of many a sleepless night.
Mixed ability teams can cause a manager no end of headaches, but equally streaming too young can cause much unnecessary upset...and can be hard to justify given the different speeds at which players develop...and that such development can be stunted by a lack of pitch time.
For now, compared to life with the teenage teams, I’m just revelling in seeing such a happy bunch of kids, and enjoy the positive feedback from the parents. Keeping that enjoyment and positivity at the same level as they get older and start playing in Leagues...there’s the real challenge.