Kids’ welfare comes before a great goal
Ban is a no-brainer .. why should we take even the slightest risk with kids?
HEADING is a fundamental part of football.
When done well, it is a great skill that enhances the beautiful game.
At some stage, young players, if they are to progress in the sport, must learn, and therefore be coached, to head a ball.
But the SFA’s move to ban children under the age of 12 from heading footballs during training is entirely correct.
First and foremost, the authorities must protect the physical well-being of the thousands of children who play football.
The SFA has taken sensible and measured action and it is not before time.
We know that professional footballers are more likely to suffer neuro-degenerative diseases than the general public.
The higher risk has been directly linked to heading the ball.
Modern footballs are significantly safer than the old leather balls the likes of the great Billy McNeill grew up heading. But there is still a risk. As well as the ban for the youngest children, they have placed restrictions on all players up to the age of 17.
These guidelines introduced to protect our young players should be welcome by all.
IT’S a no-brainer.
If you are offered a scenario where you are given a choice of letting your kid walk into two rooms and by going into one of them he is FIVE times more likely to suffer from Alzheimers and FOUR times more at risk of Motor Neurone Disease in later life, you are going to choose the other one.
So when scientific research, conducted on our own doorstep by world leaders in the field at Glasgow University confirmed professional football players are at higher risk of dying from neurodegenerative disease, you have to sit up and pay attention.
And while the research doesn’t conclude heading a ball from a young age is a contributory factor, yesterday’s announcement to ban it in primary school-age training sessions makes sense to me.
My son Jamie turns 10 tomorrow. He is part of the Academy set-up at Queen’s Park and has been for a year. In all that time,I’ve NEVER seen the coaches give him or his team-mates a heading drill, so in that sense nothing will change.
Yes, they’ll head the ball occasionally in a match situation, but over the course of three 20-minute thirds they have been playing up until now, I can usually count on one hand the number of times they nod the ball.
The balls they use are smaller in size, light and don’t soak up water. The risk to their long-term health is probably far less than it would have been 30 or 40 years ago but why take the chance at all?
As they grow stronger and taller, heading the ball will become part of the game and it seems a sensible approach is being taken by gradually introducing it to training regimes as kids progress through the groups.
But the days of heading a ball 100 times a day in training, as former England star Alan Shearer claims he did – and he admits he fears what the long-term damage might be – have to be long gone.
Most clubs, in fact all of the academy teams I’ve seen, are adopting a play-it-on-the deck approach to their coaching.
Keepers punting the ball out of their hands for a big centre-forward to contest with an even bigger centre-back is non-existent and on the very rare occasion it happens it’s frowned upon.
Now, when they reach late teens or early adulthood, players will have to mix and match how they play the game. They can’t all be Barcelona and at times the ball will be slammed into the box and the cry of “attack it” will ring out from the sidelines.
That’s football and that’s the way it should be. At least until they ban heading for good throughout the game and that’s not going to happen anytime soon.
Nor should it. Heading the ball is part of the fabric of the senior game.
But 10-year-olds don’t have to be doing it.
Let’s keep honing their skills with the ball at their feet. Let’s keep them passing and moving.
Teach them that it’s possible to have a good touch and to play with a good tempo.
Then, by the time they’re 16, it will be second nature to them and maybe, just maybe, our national team will benefit in the long term.
But primary schoolkids being taught how to head a ball? No need. And not for me.
There will be many - in fact, there are some in the very office from which I am writing this who will say this is just another example of society catering for a generation of snowflakes.
Me? I think that anyone who thinks that has been heading too many footballs.
Heading the ball is part of the senior game but 10 year olds don’t have to be doing it