doing it for the kids:
|
Posted: October 22nd 2009
Click here to feedback
Many years ago, in a former life, I was quite active in the clubbing scene, from the early days of acid house (blimey that sounds such a quaint term nowadays) through to the boom years of the 90s.
Being slightly older than many of the (ahem) “main players” on the scene, and also being of a more conservative, cautious nature than I’d probably care to admit, I touched nothing more than alcohol through this period. Consequently I can look back at the period with relative clarity, rather than through an ecstasy-induced haze.
I recall many a media article at the time focussing on the relative lack of research that had been done into ‘e’ and its side effects. It was widely reported that for many years, particularly in the States, it had been a prescribed anti-depressant...but somewhere along the line, a decision had been made to take it off the prescription drug list, and by 1988 it was illegal. The alarm bells this should have sounded didn’t stop an estimated 500,000 ‘ravers’ (another now so quaint term) necking a pill every weekend.
So, it was in effect a huge experiment, both scientific & social, being carried out by these clubbers every week, with the usual suspects lining up on both sides of the argument – namely “it does less damage than alcohol” vs “be prepared for a generation of brain damaged victims in 20 years’ time”.
Well, 20 odd years on, I’m not aware of a generation suffering from ecstasy fallout, and if anything the drug is now more readily available, cheaper, and even more widely used. The rights & wrongs of that are not what concern us here though. You’re probably also wondering how any of this is relevant to kids’ football...well allow me to start rounding the circle I’ve somewhat bizarrely started here...
95% of those involved in the kids’ game are volunteers. The vast majority of clubs have all their volunteers CRB-checked to ensure they have no skeletons in the closet that should prevent them working with children. The FA also runs not only coaching courses, but also provides regular 1st Aid and Child Welfare workshops which once again most clubs encourage their key volunteers to attend.
This is all good. However, the one area in which most of us involved weekly in grass roots kids’ football have no training whatsoever is arguably the most important area of all – how to deal with kids.
Those who choose a profession in which they are in regular contact with children, be it teachers, nursery staff, social workers and more, have to jump through many a hoop to get qualified – and rightly so, most would argue. However, to run a kids’ football team, in most cases it’s a quick CRB check then you’re in. As virtually all of us who fulfil this role have a child in the team with which we’re involved, it’s seemingly assumed that as a parent, we’re qualified to take charge of 10, 15 or 20 other kids.
Most parents would admit that they find parenting their own offspring an experiment in itself, so kids’ football effectively extends that experimentation by giving thousands of untrained volunteers responsibility for children other than their own.
Of course untrained doesn’t necessarily mean unprepared, and many would argue that a good dose of common sense will get you by – which it often does. However, in the last two weeks alone myself and my colleagues have faced numerous tricky situations. Two boys in the u16s scrapping at training...2 girls in the u12s completely disrupting a session...an over enthusiastic dad constantly barking at players to pass to his son (in a training match)...a disgruntled player quitting the team and happy enough stirring to suggest a mate or two follows suit...two ultra competitive five year olds indulging in a running battle of fouling / crocodile tears...not to mention the routine player poaching stuff...
The likes of teachers deal with this daily, of course, but are not only trained to do so, but very quickly get experienced at how best to deal with such matters. Not only are we not trained, but also I’m in the minority in being involved in more than one team, and at different age groups – most volunteers stick with one group of players for a few years, then just as they probably feel they’ve finally got the hang of it, the kids are grown up, the team disbands, and they drift away from the grass roots game, taking their valuable experience with them.
The FA’s respect campaign, whilst initially seemingly inspired by Ashley Cole’s petulant outburst at White Hart Lane the other year, is actually making a pretty good go at educating parents (be they coaches or spectators) as to how not to deal with children – check their promotional videos starring Ray Winstone here: Ray #1 and Ray #2
...whilst they also are introducing a series of additional courses for youth coaches that I believe are as much about the psychology of coaching as the tactics. I’ll let you know more when I’ve completed the first course...I was due to take it in the summer, but it was cancelled due to lack of interest.
For a number of years I had a lad in my team with Attention Deficit Syndrome, who didn’t want to take his prescribed medication on matchdays as he thought it would calm him down too much. No teacher in a school would be left to deal with such a situation unsupported / untrained, nor should they have to, but volunteer football coaches face such delicate situations daily.
I’ve often said to the kids in my footballing care that if, when their teams reach their natural ends, they all look back and say “I really enjoyed that”, that would mean a lot more to me than any trophy haul (which in kids’ football is so often attained by players being jettisoned along the way). As my personal experiment is still ongoing, I’ll have to get back to you on the results of that one...like the ecstasy evangelists of the late 80s, for now I’ll just cross my fingers and get on with it.