I’ve always been a football man. Oh, and cricket in the summer. I tried rugby and tennis and athletics (they were mandatory at my senior school) but they never captured my imagination really. In fact, I was humiliated in all three before the age of 12.
At rugby, I played hooker for my house, as I was a biggish kid – this meant I was the poor sod in the middle of the front row of the scrum that was always flattened when it collapsed. You can always tell hookers by their flattened noses, puffy eyebrows and cauliflower ears, the legacy of many years of such battering. They’re usually fat bastards too. Anyway, I hooked for my house. We were playing one of the other houses in the First Year rugby tournament. I was 11. It was a tough game and the kid who was playing hooker for the other side – and hence my direct opponent at every scrum – was bigger than me. His dad also was a rugby man, and had brought his son up in the same way. He had taught this kid some of the dark arts of the scrum – how to gouge the eye, for instance, or nut your opponent hard when you pack down. I was having a pretty rough time. I decided to get my own back a bit, and the next time we packed down brought my knee up to rake the bugger’s shin with my studs. I hoped to shred his sock and draw blood. I drew blood alright – my own. I managed to knee myself in the mouth and split my lip. I have never seen so much blood in all my life – it was a positive gusher. Of course, my opponent and everyone else on the pitch, including the teacher refereeing the match, pissed themselves laughing.
I never played rugby again.
Tennis was little better. Come the spring, after my lip had healed, I decided to have a go at the game. I had an old wooden racquet that my sister had given me, and used to knock around with friends in the road outside my house. It’s only slapping a ball back and forth across a net, I thought – can’t be that hard. So I entered the school tournament, and drew a kid who, it transpired, was a keen player and went to a club with his parents regularly. But I didn’t know that when we strolled out on court one sunny spring morning, and I still harboured expectations of winning the match. 12 minutes and a 6-0 6-0 hammering sorted that idea out.
End of tennis career.
So athletics. Worst of the lot, I’m afraid. I could run a bit, sprints anyway. I was ok at the long jump and the high jump. I tried the shot and discus and got on ok. So I was enjoying it when school sports day came around. I entered the long jump, the 400m and the 110m sprint, and had high hopes of winning at least one of them. The 110m was first. I lined up and off we went. Coming off the bend I was handily placed, second I think, so I accelerated, the tape and glory in my sights. The sprint lasted 2 strides. Then a terrific pain in the back of my thigh told me the muscle had gone. I yelped in agony (blimey, it was painful!) and instead of breaking the tape with my chest I watched the field disappear in the distance as I hopped around in a circle, clutching my leg and cursing in a way no 11 year old should. For a moment there was silence, then all 600 boys and thirty odd teachers watching the race started laughing….not quietly and respectfully, but roaring with near hysteria. God, I felt such a prat – I would have been happy for the ground to have opened up and swallow me.
So end of athletics.
* * *
So I concentrated on those quintessential English games of football and cricket.
Over the years I was reasonably successful and ended up quite good. In football, I played for the school team, my local under 16s team, and after that the club’s senior side (in fact I started playing for them at 15). When I left school I played for my company’s team as well. So on a typical week I would play Saturday afternoon for my local club, Sunday morning for my company team, training on Mondays and Wednesdays for the local club and Tuesdays for my company team, and 5-a-side for them on Thursdays. So Friday was my night off, to be spent in a pub or nightclub somewhere. I was drinking heavily and smoking maybe 20 Marlboro every day – but I was fitter than at any time in my life. I won a few pots, had a lot of laughs, broke my nose a couple of times and either broke or dislocated all my fingers, and gave it all up at 25 when my eldest son was born – being an attentive father seemed more important than kicking a ball around at weekends. Later, when my kids grew up and started playing themselves, I made sure I went to as many of their matches as I could, and ended up coaching my eldest boys’ team for a couple of years. I thoroughly enjoyed it and miss it terribly, now I’m older and (it has to be said!) less active.
I was ok at cricket too. I used to keep wicket quite adequately, batted reasonably solid as an opener but without scoring loads of runs, and tried my hand successfully at bowling too, in my last season – I only played half of it, and in not enough matches to be included in the season’s overall figures, but even so I topped the “unofficial” bowling averages for the whole season – one more match and I would have won an “official” award for that. So the only thing I ever won was a single wicket competition at the club, and that was more by luck than judgement. Very social game, cricket. Two games a weekend, both lasting several hours and often without deciding a winner – something foreigners (at least from non-cricketing nations) completely fail to understand. Then several more hours in the club bar or pub, playing darts, three-card brag or poker for sometimes significant money with the opposition players, and just talking about the world and all its sins, but mostly about whether Alan Knott was a better wicket-keeper than Rod Marsh (could never make my mind up on that one), or was Ian Botham a better all-rounder than Kapil Dev or Imran Khan (no contest – Botham every time).
Happy days.
* * *
One thing that has been common throughout my sporting days, however, has been the phenomenon of the Pushy Parent. Those of you with kids will I’m sure have seen these people already – the father (or mother) patrolling the touchline, yelling alternately encouragement or abuse at their offspring who is desperately trying to please both parent and coach, and probably failing to do either. The poor kid at best ends up embarrassed by the whole affair, and at worst in floods of tears as he’s hauled off before the end to save him from further pain.
My mate Tony had a mum who was the epitomy of this. We were playing in the under-16s for our local team. We had grown up together, played together since pre-school (there was a group of some half a dozen of us, all from the same street) and we signed for the club at the same time, when it started in 1966 or thereabouts. Behind Tony’s house there was a field, so from our earliest years we would all go out there and play War, or Cowboys & Indians, or Dan Dare (this was the late 50s, early 60s – a helluva long time ago now!), and when we grew out of those and started to get interested in it, football. We would watch The Big Match highlights show on a Sunday afternoon, or the FA Cup Final, or an international match or something, then convene in the field to emulate the best bits. It’s how we all learned to dribble the ball, or shoot, or cross and head, or in my case as a goalkeeper plunge bravely at the feet of the on-rushing forward to make a save at risk, quite literally, of life and limb. It was brilliant.
Anyway, when the club started, we used to have a coach to away games and there were always parents coming along to watch us (which for a 14 year old was a mixed blessing: it was great to play in front of maybe 40 or 50 people – including the opposition parents – but meant we had to stop swearing and stuff or we would be in trouble). By and large, the parents were pretty good, and would encourage us and applaud us even when we were getting hammered – which used to happen quite often, at least that first season. But Tony’s mum was something else.
She was a small woman, no more than about 5 foot two, so smaller than most of us, let alone the bigger kids, the 16 year olds we were playing against, some of whom smoked and had beards. As far as she was concerned, Tony was the best player ever – and to be fair, he was more than useful, in a languid Tony Currie – Trevor Brooking – Andres Iniesta style, great ball control, not the quickest runner but able to play that killer pass – and could do no wrong. She would quite literally sprint along the touchline next to him, yelling “Come on Tony! Come on Tony!” throughout the entire match. We got used to it in the end and ignored it, but poor old Tony used to take some stick from the opposition about being a mummy’s boy (which he most certainly wasn’t) – especially if he got injured in a tackle or something, when you could guarantee she would come running onto the pitch to make sure he was ok. In the end, he banned her from coming to watch, after she ran onto the pitch and clouted with her handbag some kid who had just kicked Tony up in the air. It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen on a football pitch I think – the kid was about 6 foot, with a wispy beard and built like a brick shithouse and there was this little middle aged lady larruping him around the ear with a handbag. Fabulous.
Other teams had their own versions of her, and often heated arguments would break out between the two sets of supporters while we kids tried to get on and play the game as well as possible. It was hard sometimes, when you hear your mum or dad hurling abuse at someone on the touchline. You think at first it’s funny, but then you realize that if they were to catch you doing something similar you would be well and truly in the shit – grounded or something. Remember, this was in the good old days when kids actually respected their parents, by and large didn’t answer back when being bollocked, and accepted any punishment with a reasonable amount of good grace. Unlike today…….
I was quite glad when I graduated to senior football – the men’s team – and the number of supporters dropped from 40-odd to maybe four (including both teams’ substitutes and manager). It meant you could just go on and enjoy your game, and the only criticism would come from your teammates and your coach and was therefore perfectly valid. I even learned some new and interesting swearwords. The Pushy Parent disappeared from view, and faded from memory. For at least the next 15 years or so – until I got involved in Doug’s team.
* * *
Doug is my eldest son, and still the best 14 year old midfield player I’ve ever seen (alright, I admit to bias but I remain convinced that with a bit more luck he could have been as good as someone like Steven Gerrard). Pretty much from infancy he had a talent with a ball. At 18 months, an age when some kids are barely walking, he was able to drop kick one of those light weight plastic footballs over a 6 foot fence into next door’s back garden. He always used to watch football on the telly with me, and although I didn’t realize it at the time (and probably he didn’t either) he was picking things up and trying them out himself when he played in the garden with me or his brothers. He was captain of his primary school team, and they were pretty good.
Then at about 11 he joined the village team, and I took to watching him most weeks. He played midfield (although was equally good at striker or in defence – he had a few games in goal as well, later on, and was good there too: his ball control and distribution was as good as anything you’ll see from today’s sweeper-keepers but this was years before they came in) and was able to dominate matches. Great ball control, killer pass, good in the air and at tackling, and he scored a good few too. I used to thoroughly enjoy watching him, and was (and still am) proud of him. Then one summer’s day he and couple of mates came tearing down the drive on their bikes with the news that their team manager had given up and the team would be scrapped if no-one stepped in by the end of the week. Well, I couldn’t let that happen, could I? I spoke to a mate of mine whose son also played in the team, and we agreed to take it on…..Nick did all the admin stuff, arranging referees, collecting subs, balancing the books and reporting to the club committee (the club had several teams from under 10 to under 16) while I looked after the coaching and stuff, having played a bit myself.
I did it for maybe three seasons, and loved it. I had no badges or qualifications, only 10 years’ playing experience and bags of enthusiasm – pretty much like all the other managers and coaches I came across during those years. There was the odd one with a bit of background, if I can call it that – one of the guys in our club had played for Crystal Palace but never signed professionally (he used to say it was due to work commitments but in truth he wasn’t quite good enough), and another guy from a club in Blackheath had played for Charlton Athletic reserves – but they were very much the exception, rather than the rule. The boys were keen as mustard, but initially not so hot. We worked with them every Saturday morning for a couple of hours, and played on the Sunday. Early on we realized they were being out-muscled by teams – they weren’t weak or anything like that, but some of the other teams weren’t averse to the odd bit of law-bending, so we spent a couple of sessions teaching a few tricks to combat it. They started improving.
And then the Pushy Parents started turning up. When results weren’t so good we would have maybe two or three parents turn up, which was great for away matches as it helped tremendously with transport. But when they started winning, more parents arrived, and invariably they were of the Pushy variety. Nick and I spent half the time justifying selections and tactics to them, and it led to some quite hot exchanges at times. I don’t how much it affected the kids, but it can’t have been easy for some of them when I would be telling them to play one way and their old man was telling them something different. And again, it was the same at every single club we played – parents arguing with managers, kids stuck in the middle not knowing which way to turn. We had one lad, a central defender, very comfortable on the ball and with the ability and confidence to run the ball out of defence. I was happy for him to do that most times, and applauded it, but his dad invariably was bellowing at him to “Get rid of it!” – i.e. just hoof the bloody thing as far upfield as possible. Inevitably, sometimes the kid was caught in two minds. Another boy wasn’t very good at all (being kind to him), but he was part of the squad so we gave him match time – there were only 16 kids allowed in the squad, so with the inevitable injuries and childhood illnesses that was quite regularly. And of course if he was in the team at the expense of certain players (I’m thinking of one in particular) then there was hell to play. The other kid’s father would spend half his time abusing this poor lad and the other half berating Nick and I for putting him on in the first place. It destroyed the lad’s confidence completely…..a great shame, and totally unnecessary.
It all came good in the end, the year after I was forced to quit because of work pressures. I was given the choice by my then employer, a now defunct US bank, to quit the team or quit the job – since they were paying my mortgage I didn’t have much choice. The bastards sacked me six months later anyway…. Nick carried on alone, with the odd bit of help from a parent who claimed to have played for Southampton, and the lads won the league. I was really pleased, and like to think (and it’s probably delusional, but still…) that the grounding I had given them previously may have contributed to their success.
* * *
I used to think the Pushy Parent was a purely British phenomenon, but now I’m not so sure.
Barcelona, the all-conquering Spaniards widely held to be the best team on the planet (and quite possibly the best club side ever) have started a nursery team in Warsaw. They have centres in four locations around the city, including one close to where we live, and apparently it’s something they are doing increasingly around the world – a friend told me there is a similar scheme operating in London. It’s all part of a strategic plan to sweep up as much talent worldwide as early as possible, thus keeping kids out of the hands of major rivals like Real Madrid, AC Milan, Chelsea, the two Manchester clubs and so on. The money they’re spending is considered a long term investment, and to me it seems a great idea. The kids fortunate enough to get signed on will get the best quality coaching from an early age, and even if they don’t make the grade they will without doubt be better players for the experience and take that on to whichever team they play for – and probably pass it on to their own kids too. And if the club picks up another Lionel Messi for nothing at one of these academies it will have been worth their while – and the law of averages suggests that sooner or later they will do just that.
Anyway, given the proximity to our place and the fact that Kuba, with the encouragement of his brothers and I, loves football, we put his name down, and he had a trial last weekend. Whatever happens, he enjoyed it, had some fun with a bunch of other six year olds, on a proper pitch under floodlights with real, honest-to-God Barcelona coaching staff – an experience I would LOVE to have had! And there too was the Pushy Parent, the Polish variety. Not too different to the British in fact. Some of the kids had obviously spent time practicing with their dads, and were actually quite useful little footballers – one kid was only little, the smallest boy there, but easily the most skillful, a right little Messi or Xavi , even at the age of 6 great to watch. I would be surprised if he didn’t make it. But there were others there who were trying their best but for whatever reason it wasn’t quite happening for them – and their dad’s reactions were eye openers. “You can do better than that, what the hell’s wrong with you tonight?” was one of the more polite comments apparently.
I have to admit to falling by the wayside myself – in a minor way, but sufficient to be “Sent to the stands” (they had those too….). What happened was this: the last exercise was a four v four small-sided match, where everyone had a go in goal. Kubzi was doing ok – flying into tackles on the opposition and his own team alike (from which he collected a nice bruise on his face from a collision – his first war-wound), and almost scoring from one shot. Come his turn in goal, and he’s wandering around a couple of feet behind his goal line. So I’m yelling at him to move up a bit (fortunately play was up the other end) but either he couldn’t hear me or didn’t understand what I was on about. So I went on to the pitch, behind the goal, and just told him again to move up a couple of yards, which he duly did. But I couldn’t resist it – I started giving him advice about what to do when the other team attacked, what to do with the ball and so on. Up comes the Head Coach, a young Pole with excellent English (fortunately). He was very polite, but told me to get off the pitch as they wanted to let the kids think for themselves. Of course I apologized to him and beat a hasty retreat – I agreed completely with his point, and made the excuse that I used to coach Doug’s team, and was getting old now, missed it all terribly and sometimes got carried away. All of which is perfectly true.
* * *
I was talking to my sister-in-law about this on Sunday. Her sons play for a local club and are both pretty useful players (the youngest boy in particular). Anyway, this summer the team took part in an international tournament in Barcelona. There were also teams from Spain, Germany, France and elsewhere. It was all quite serious, without being the end of the world if you lost. And of course a great experience for the kids to take part in something like that. But she was telling me that where the Polish parents and (especially) the Spanish were intent only on supporting and encouraging their children’s teams, no matter the performance or result, others, notably the Germans, were far from sporting and were exceedingly pissed off if their team lost. There was a reluctance to shake hands at the start and end of a match, especially if the result or performance were not “acceptable” and much abuse aimed at match officials.
It reminded me of my experiences so many years ago.
* * *
And it also made me think about the way football has developed over those years, especially in England.
I can remember a time when we were genuinely one of the best teams in the world, and beating us – especially at home – was a major achievement (unless you happened to be German or Brazilian when you expected to win every game anyway). I remember 1966, watching us win the World Cup for the only time, then going out into the field and spending the rest of the weekend (make that the next WEEK) imitating all the key moments with my mates. I remember the 1980s, when Liverpool and Nottingham Forest dominated the European Cup, in the days when you had to win your League to qualify and the whole competition was a knock out format, ties decided over two legs, before it became this bloated UEFA Champions League where you can finish fourth and still qualify, then make millions from competing in half a season of group league matches before half a season of knock-out matches. And all of it live on tv all over the world.
I remember when Spain were not very good and tended to get knocked out in group matches of the major tournaments (that’s if they qualified at all), rather than the reigning European and World Champions as they are now. I can even remember Germany being relatively shite (although the buggers still seemed to beat us every time!).
So what happened? How come it’s now Spain and Germany who are the best in the world (with apologies to Brazil) and us who are pants? Where did it all go wrong?
In a nutshell, I think primarily in a lack of leadership in the English game, with senior FA figures who refuse to accept that the game itself has moved on. Who have failed to invest in the development of the game from kids’ football up to the professional game. Who have allowed money, in the shape of the Sky tv bankrolled Premier League to dominate the game at the expense not only of the rest of professional football but even the national team.
Read any football magazine and you will find regular articles comparing player development in England against the likes of Spain and Germany and the Netherlands, in all of which every organization in football works together with the interests of the national team at the pinnacle. In all of them the number of professionally qualified coaches working with kids – in their formative years, from about 6 to 16 – runs in the tens of thousands and not the LESS THAN ten thousand in similar posts in England (and that does NOT include the academies run by the professional clubs). In all of them, there is a recognizable style of play common to most club teams, and to all the various international age-group sides. The players are comfortable on the ball, with either foot, can control it with a single touch, make space for themselves seemingly effortlessly, can run forever and play at a pace (and a variation of pace) that can seem bewildering. Even the goalkeepers have ball control and dribbling ability, not to mention distribution skills – the ability to pass long or short with unerring accuracy – that put many an English outfield player to shame.
In all of these countries, even the youngest kids are encouraged to try dribbles, and tricks, and first-time flicks and all the “fancy dan” stuff that in England generally brings out the bellowed “Get rid of the fucking thing!” when some skillful but hapless centre half tries to dribble out of his area or play his way out of a tight spot. Kids play on small pitches with small goals, scaled to their size at each age level, and don’t get to a full-sized pitch and goal until around 15 or 16 (and even then they continue to play a lot of small-sided stuff). They spend a lot more time at training sessions too, maybe 10 or 12 hours a week (more in Germany) rather the English two or three.
Meanwhile, the English remain stuck in their “Willing Amateur” mentality. Most kids teams are coached by people like me – enthusiastic dads who’ve played a bit and (let’s be honest) are desperately trying to re-capture lost glories or live out their fantasies on their kids. We don’t have coaching badges, we know bugger all about fitness or tactics except what we’ve picked up from the pages of FourFourTwo or When Saturday Comes – excellent magazines for sure, but hardly text books for making our kids better players, worthy to challenge the likes of Spain and Germany and France and Italy and Brazil and……the list goes on.
We’re all basically Pushy Parents, whether we care to admit or not. And between us and those who run the game in England, we’ve managed to ruin generation after generation of potentially talented players, and brought the English team, once the best in the world, to its knees.
I'm really touched by the fact that you've just mentioned my little story of Pushy Parents in Barcelona!
ReplyDeleteYour blog - always worth reading :-)