Sin bins can stop the dissent into madness
SIN bins are the way forward if we want to turn the tide on discipline in football.
I’m passionate about grass-roots football providing a pathway to careers in the professional game.
And I have come to realise that, even at 14, players can develop and win at the same time.
Of course, you don’t want them to be playing at a level where they are out of their depth.
But in Italy, France and Spain, kids in academies play for points in competitive leagues from an early age.
In England we don’t do that until under-18 level, although at grass roots (outside the academy system) we do it from under-12 onwards.
Manuel Romero, Real Madrid’s former chief scout, says: “Apart from making the competition more legitimate, it makes the child grow with that competitive gene.”
In other words, young lads at academies on the continent are exposed to a competitive environment at a much earlier age. What’s wrong with looking at a league table and wanting to be top of the pile?
And a bit of discipline never did 14-year-olds any harm.
My PFA Academy All-Stars Under-14 team plays in the Timperley and District junior league and this season they introduced sin bins.
As the manager, I’ve told my players that if anyone is sin-binned for backchat to refs or officials, they will miss the next two games.
So far, it has worked. None of my boys has been sent to the naughty step.
And it’s something well worth looking at higher up the food chain.
The sin bins have been a revelation. They are an excellent deterrent to ill discipline.
If you are ordered to cool down for 10 minutes, and your team concedes a goal while you’re off the pitch, you are not going to be popular with your team-mates or the manager. I’ve adopted a hard-line approach to my players being sin-binned as part of a sea-change in my grass-roots mentality.
Above all, I still want the boys to enjoy playing – but at under-14 level I’ve decided that winning matters too.
Already this year, we’ve had three lads picked up by professional clubs – Liverpool, Preston and Rochdale.
And if we go through the rest of the season without winning a game but another 10 of my players are signed by clubs, I will regard that as success.
The best way for these lads to get noticed by scouts is to play with ambition – in a team where winning is the target.
I’m trying to give them the best of both worlds – grass-roots ethics with Premier League desire.