doing it for the kids:
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Posted: November 20th 2009
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These musings are all well & good, thought-provoking on occasion...even entertaining. But when are you going to get back to the diary style blog entries? That’s been the question from some of my regular readers of late (and I thank them both sincerely)...I promise a diary style catch up on the ongoing fortunes of the u16 boys, u12 girls and the 4-7s section next week...
...this last fortnight, however, I have been mostly fire-fighting. Barely a moment to think about the games without club politics rearing their ugly mug.
There’s the mate who’s trying to find his son a new team because of that old chestnut, over-competitive manager not even giving him five minutes on pitch (and this is in Div Two mid-table...at u10s, for crying out loud).
Then there’s one of my u16s, supremely talented but so small that, unfortunately, he simply gets knocked off the ball whenever we play a team full of six footers (which is most weeks these days). He’s made a surprisingly robust star to the season, and has been rewarded with far more pitch time than either he or we probably expected. That still doesn’t stop his mum having a moan after the game when, for the first time in weeks, he’s been sub, and only got 20 minutes (though she swears blind it was 10). Wonder if aged 16 he felt a bit embarrassed by his mum doing his bidding for him...
A fellow committee member with whom I enjoy what’s best called a frosty relationship has found new ways in which to try to undermine me, but I can’t go into further details due to pending legal action (only kidding...but I’m still keeping schtum as I wouldn’t put it past him making this his next move).
Last weekend, I did a guest coaching session for half the u7s squad. This is the half not deemed quite ready yet for the bear pit of regular competitive games (aka ‘friendlies’ as per FA rules for this age group). The other, more adept half are playing in such a game. A deputation of parents confront me at the end of the session – not, I hasten to add, about the session content. Oh no – they want a word about their manager (a totally dedicated individual) and his ‘streaming’ of the group.
I fight his corner. I tell them his decisions aren’t set in stone, and that he has to judge what’s best for each child, what stage they’re at, what they are / aren’t ready for. I bite my lip, and choose not to tell one mum that her lad might develop quicker if he took some time out during the session to try playing some football, rather than spend the duration doing monkey impressions.
Then today, a fellow manager within our club with whom I’ve always enjoyed excellent relations sent me a nasty email out of the blue. It accused me of all sorts. I argued my corner, but he wouldn’t back down. A lot of his ire was directed towards past problems the club has had, but which were long since rectified – only he appears not to have noticed. It’s as if I’ve innocently commented on what a good job Fabio Capello is doing, and he’s said never mind that, I wanna talk about that Steve McLaren, flippin’ useless he is...
For a few hours I think, “I really don’t need this”. Then a mixture of a sympathetic ear from a fellow club committee member, and coming up with a solution to the problems my attacker has raised that I think he’ll be happy with...and all’s well with the world...only I’ve wasted half the day fretting about it...