Your players parents attitude is important, if not more so, than your players. If your new to grassroots football you might think I am slightly over exaggerating. Read on for a real life incident that has just happened to me….
I have spent two years coaching my team at Under7 and Under8 level. We have developed as a team and the players, as you would expect, have developed to varying degrees.
All along, I have tried to keep the parents involved – I set up a Facebook group, I did a one page newsletter to let them know what we were doing in training, and why, I had a pre-season meeting where I explained that the FA guidelines at our age included giving all players equal game time, and rotate positions to give the kids a wider exposure to all aspects of the game.
We were playing 5 aside, and I had a group of 4 “more confident” kids, and a group of 4 who weren’t quite at that level, and a GK. So I would always play 2 from the “more confident” group and 2 from the other group to keep a good balance in the team.
It seemed to work, we never got battered by anyone, and we never battered anyone else, the games were always good and competitive, win lose or draw Midway through last season the mother of one of the “better” players told me she wasn’t happy that her daughter was brought off for someone else to go on. I explained that this was development football and all the players needed game time as we were moving up to 7 aside next season, so the kids needed to have games under their belts.
I thought that was it, until I heard that this mother had begun talking to the parents of the other “more confident” kids, and encouraged them to form a summer league team, which they have now decided to take to winter league next season. The paradox here is that whilst she wants me to tell a 7 year old child, who has been looking forward to a game all week, got his kit ready on a Saturday morning “sorry, but you’re not good enough to get on today”…she herself has not had the guts to actually tell me about this team.
I’ve heard it all through the kids and other parents. So out of my squad of 9, they’ve taken 5 and are actively trying to get my other coach and his son to join them to coach them despite him and his son saying they want to stay where they are. The whole thing made me seriously consider quitting coaching. Until two of the parents who are left told me about how grateful they were for the help I’d give their kids; and even the parents of kids that are leaving have thanked me and said they’re only leaving cos their kids want to be with their mates.
This mum, on the other hand, hasn’t even had the decency to say goodbye, let alone thank you, and I got a text to say she would leave the kit next to her meter box for me to collect. So, new coaches, take a look at the parents as well as the kids, make sure they support your philosophy and don’t have their own agenda. This mum has nearly brought down a team – she doesn’t care about the fact that my coach and I have brought the boys to this level; she doesn’t care about the time that we put in for the past 2 years; she doesn’t care about the boys that are left behind. She just cares about her son winning a game of football.
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