Junior Football
Junior Football
I have been involved in Football in Australia for most of my life as player, coach or parent. My youngest son Blake plays in the U17 competition here on the Gold Coast for Palm Beach Sharks. As usual Veronica and I went with him to football on Friday night and arrived an hour prior to kickoff.
What I noticed here in Blake’s match was the big difference between players of different skills and how they played the game. It is an obvious statement I know, but it makes a huge difference to a team and how they progress up the field or are under the pump the whole game.
Then there are the parents on the sideline who YELL at the defence every time to “kick it out of there” or “get rid of it” or something similar. This to me is a terrible thing to be telling young players. We need to be encouraging them to play the ball out of defence whenever possible. Kicking it out of there should be a last result.
The FFA here in Australia has introduced a National Policy of Small Sided Games to promote this. We need this so we have more skilled players pressuring the small number of higher skilled players for positions in development squads, Youth Leagues and eventually A-League clubs. Our national squad will only benefit from this attitude. We need to catch up with the rest of the world in this area of Football development so we can have a 100 Harry Kewel’s or Mark Viduka’s to follow.
Coaches and parents need to be educated here as well and stop yelling out such negative support. Sitting with Brendon was also enlightening, even with his bad jokes. Brendon is from Tasmania and knows little about the game of Football, he is more comfortable with AFL. But because Brendon is very competitive and has played at a decent level in Tasmania he knows how to watch a team sport and what they are trying to achieve. He knew when things were going wrong and why. He knew more about how the game works than some adults who have been around the game all their life. Although he needs to stop openly applauding the opposition team because they were playing so much better, just keep it to your self next time Brendon.
Cheers
Terry
May 05 2008 09:56 am | General
