LISTEN UP, FOOTY DADS
Football: Do your son a favour and ignore coaches with transfer advice
Iplayed my junior football for Seatoun in Wellington. We had a useful wee team, and most years we fought it out with WDU and Karori Swifts for the league title.
Did any of our boys ever transfer to WDU or Swifts? Did any of their boys ever come to us? Did our coach Mr Boyd ever ring the parents of another club’s kid and say ‘‘Bring your boy to us. Our coaching is better/our training facilities are better/we’ll take your boy on a trip to Japan.’’? Did he get the parents of his boys to sidle up to the parents of their boys on the sideline and have a quiet word?
No. In those days you just played for your club and that was it.
Times have changed. Today’s dads have decided that football is a career option for their son. Or, put another way, a chance at a career for themselves, which they’ll play out through their son.
That’s one reason dads’ll have their kid off to another club before the child can say ‘‘But Dad…’’
And some clubs are happy to lead these star struck dads down the garden path, just so they can have a winning team and fool themselves that they’re doing the kids a service. They tell the dads:
‘‘Play for us. We’re the pathway to pro football.’’
They’re not. Our only pro team, the Wellington Phoenix, are like most pro clubs – they have their youth programme, and a first team full of imports. That tells us that if you’re good enough, like Roy Krishna, Ben Sigmund, or Andrew Durante, the Phoenix will come for you, whether you’re at Onehunga Sports, Stewart Island FC or Timbuktu Rovers.
Feeder clubs will tell the dads: ‘‘To play for the Phoenix, your boy needs to learn the Phoenix system.’’ The Phoenix first team is proof that you don’t, and besides,
others wonder whether, judging by results, their system is really one a young player should learn.
Naturally the parents pay extra for the expert coaching and to be on ‘‘the pathway’’, but with the carrot of pro football dangling, they’re happy to cough up.
Mr Boyd wouldn’t approve of the way ambitious clubs attract other club’s best youngsters. It’s a poaching system which would do the ivory traders proud. Track down details of all the rep players in town and send letters inviting them to ditch the club that helped them become reps.
There may be someone reading this thinking, ‘‘That’s a bit rich coming from you, William, after what you did six years ago.’’
What I did was tell the parents of a boy I’d coached for years in my schools programme, parents who I’d become friends with, ‘‘This season I’m coaching the 9th grade team at your local club. In the team are several boys who practise with Josh (not his real name) at school. I realise Josh plays for another club, but I’m telling you because you live nearby and I wouldn’t want you to hear about our team and feel excluded. It’s up to you.’’
Josh transferred, mostly because it saved the family lots of travel.
Was that poaching? His football mad granddad thought so and let me know in no uncertain terms.
Parents think if their boy plays for a better team, it makes him a better player. This fallacy is most obvious with goalkeepers, who pick daisies while their teammates rack up double figures. How is that helping his game? Better to play for a weaker team and get plenty to do.
Much more important than who he plays for, or who his coach is, is what he does outside of formal matches and training. Because as coach Manfred Schellscheidt said: ‘‘I don’t believe skill is the result of coaches. It’s a result of a love affair between the child and the ball.’’
Translation: if your boy isn’t out there, day and night, mastering his ball as a magician masters a pack of cards, as a pianist masters his keyboard, forget it.