Kids Grassroots Football - The good stuff!

[XM5ER]

That's horrendous. I think that must have been one of the incidents. He should be fined by the league, if not booted out.

[anniesdad]

48Valves said:

That is truly shocking. I would have called the game at that point if someone said something similar to me. So would any of my coaches.
.

I'd no idea until after the game finished I was blissfully unaware until I blew for full time. Shook his hand, he complimented the team and I, and then I was told by my assistant what had happened...I'm not sure that a report has gone in yet but my assistant did say he was sending details to our club secretary. not sure if he's sent it in yet.

Edited: report has gone in.

Edited by anniesdad on Wednesday 27th September 23:34

[anniesdad]

An update on our "friend"

Seems another of our teams went to play his team at weekend and low and behold a very similar incident occurred, with him aggressively moving towards and squaring up to one of my colleagues...of course in full view of the 11 year old players.

We haven't heard a dicky bird from our league about our original complaint so we're yet to see quite what the league make of this guy.

It doesn't help that he was one of the people that set up his charter standard club in the first place...

[XM5ER]

It sounds like he is an accident waiting to happen.

[craig1912]

My lad was reffing an U13 game yesterday- one manager was incensed that a goal was disallowed for offside (linesman gave it and was insistent, kept his flag up).
At end of the game he walked over to the officials bawling at my lad and linesman. Other manager asked why he was getting so worked up as it didn’t make any difference- his side lost 9-2!! Stormed off refused to shake hands- muppet

[anniesdad]

XM5ER said:

It sounds like he is an accident waiting to happen.

That's our main concern.

I've proposed to our management group that the 2 teams that play in the groups where his club's 2 teams play, boycott the fixture. I expect that as he is their clubs figurehead that he is somewhat untouchable at club level, so it is up to the league to make a stand here.

[anniesdad]

craig1912 said:

My lad was reffing an U13 game yesterday- one manager was incensed that a goal was disallowed for offside (linesman gave it and was insistent, kept his flag up).
At end of the game he walked over to the officials bawling at my lad and linesman. Other manager asked why he was getting so worked up as it didn’t make any difference- his side lost 9-2!! Stormed off refused to shake hands- muppet

I should be surprised but I'm not...how old is your lad, I'm assuming a junior referee?

I reffed our game yesterday and could hear some opposition parents grumbling at what they saw as poor decisions on my part, kept my council until after I had blown my whistle to hear "the whole ball's not gone over the line, do you know what you are doing?" They assumed I had blown for a throw in when in fact I had blown for a foul by one of my players against one of theirs. Could have heard a pin drop after I shouted back the reason why I blew...

I heard later from my missus who was watching from the sidelines that one bloke said..."yeah but have you seen the size of him (me), I wouldn't want to take him on..." Not sure whether to take that as an insult or a compliment!

Spoke to the oppo coach after the game, who's a good sort and he said the main perp has just come back from a touchline ban for behaviour and obviously hasn't learned his lesson! He assured me he had spoken to his parents after the game and according to one of my teams parents he did tell his parents during the game to keep quiet, which I didn't hear.

[anniesdad]

Hoping these negatives aren't derailing what is a really good thread about the good stuff in grassroots!!

[craig1912]

anniesdad said:

I should be surprised but I'm not...how old is your lad, I'm assuming a junior referee?

He’s 16 and been reffing for two years- getting really good reviews and looking for promotion to level 5 (I think) this season.
To be honest it is generally pretty good apart from the odd parent.
One of his earlier games a manager was shouting the whole game, went up to him at the end, hugged him and said he was the best ref they’d had and there was me expecting him to get a load of grief. He’s reffed a couple of the guys matches since and he always has a chat before and after the game but shouts his head off all through it. Admits he’s a gobby git but harmless and actually quite funny.

[XM5ER]

Lets just remind ourselves that these are a small number of incidents compared to the majority of matches where it all goes off without a hitch. Yes we get annoyed by bad reffing from time to time (seriously though, you should try netball, it's know as "sport for bhes" in our house) but on the whole a bit of grumbling from the touchlines is as bad as it ever gets.

On the whole, both sides of parents we come up against will applaud good play no matter which side does it, idiots are rare. Still, looking forward to playing Wythenshaw soon, that should be entertaining.

[southendpier]

in my experience if several teams report poor behaviour at a club Note they MUST report it; both to the ref at the time and also to the league. The league will take action if there are multiple complaints. Either by sending representative down to monitor by using a higher ranking official to referee and oversee.

If there has been violence the the the incident must be reported to the County and take it from there.

Important things is stuff must be reported, almost everything in football is done retrospectively using evidence.

[fredt]

anniesdad said:

Hoping these negatives aren't derailing what is a really good thread about the good stuff in grassroots!!

I don't think it is, it is good to see both sides of the coin and learn how people deal with it. I think it's very important it's being dealt with in a official manner and not brushed under the carpet as one of these things. Luckily I have not had to deal with anything like this yet.

XM5ER said:

Lets just remind ourselves that these are a small number of incidents compared to the majority of matches where it all goes off without a hitch. Yes we get annoyed by bad reffing from time to time (seriously though, you should try netball, it's know as "sport for bhes" in our house) but on the whole a bit of grumbling from the touchlines is as bad as it ever gets.

On the whole, both sides of parents we come up against will applaud good play no matter which side does it, idiots are rare. Still, looking forward to playing Wythenshaw soon, that should be entertaining.

Exactly

On a positive note we've had a cracking start to the season. Going form 5 to 7-a-side we did some recruiting before the summer and I've got 3 new very exciting little players, really upping the level of my team. I manage the 'third seed' team in my club so at our trials I had third pick of players, I could not believe my luck when the 1st and 2nd team completely overlooked my favorite players at the trial (there was 25 boys trialing for 7 slots in our three teams, it was really quite heartbreaking to turn so many excited little boys down ), I snapped them up and they've had exactly the impact on the team as I thought they would. Still don't know what the other coaches/managers was thinking. Must say I give myself a small pat on the back for spotting this when no one else did.

So anyway we have won 5 out of 5, with a goal difference of 25/8. Great goal difference but it should've been better. The boys look really good going forward, it's starting to look like proper football and it is very exciting to watch. Don't get me wrong, it is not academy level, but it is pretty good. Defensively it's a completely different story, we can't defend for st. Goalkeeping is also dire (I'm on a full rotation, everyone plays everywhere and equally). Stamina and maintaining focus I also need to work on, I think we scored 90% of our goals in the first half and second half we fall apart - for example yesterday we we're 5-1 up at half time yesterday, not giving them anything but a very soft goal. Second half we fell apart, let them play long balls and scramble back to 5-4! Kids who in 1st half played beautifully now making in-comprehensive decisions!

But that's cool, I have something to work with here and we're all having a great time. I think(hope) the league will bump us up a level in the next set of fixtures and I am looking forward to the challenge.

[anniesdad]

craig1912 said:

anniesdad said:

I should be surprised but I'm not...how old is your lad, I'm assuming a junior referee?

He’s 16 and been reffing for two years- getting really good reviews and looking for promotion to level 5 (I think) this season.
To be honest it is generally pretty good apart from the odd parent.

Thank him from me for putting himself forward as a referee! Without the likes of him we of course know there really is no game...

In our league the junior referees seem very timid when they ref, I would love them to be more confident and to blow their whistles/give instructions with more authority. I'm sure that they would gain more confidence if they were to do so and become better refs as a result. We have to help them get better as much as we try to help our teams.

[anniesdad]

anniesdad said:

An update on our "friend"

We haven't heard a dicky bird from our league about our original complaint so we're yet to see quite what the league make of this guy.

Further update - Our Club Secretary has reported the original complaint to Manchester FA, the chief exec of MFA has taken the complaint on personally. The complaint has been passed by MFA to Cheshire FA as they are the parent FA of the individual involved. It's under official investigation. Further evidence is being provided following this latest behavioural concern.

[anniesdad]

XM5ER said:

Lets just remind ourselves that these are a small number of incidents compared to the majority of matches where it all goes off without a hitch.

Totally agree. Junior football is far better off without the individuals that want to ruin the experience for everybody else and they should be rooted out.

[anniesdad]

fredt said:

I could not believe my luck when the 1st and 2nd team completely overlooked my favorite players at the trial (there was 25 boys trialing for 7 slots in our three teams, it was really quite heartbreaking to turn so many excited little boys down

Congrats on your flying start to the season.

Is there anything being done about the 18 kids that were turned down? Any talks about forming 2 new teams? I know it wouldn't be easy but where there's a will...!

[fredt]

anniesdad said:

Congrats on your flying start to the season.

Is there anything being done about the 18 kids that were turned down? Any talks about forming 2 new teams? I know it wouldn't be easy but where there's a will...!

The club tried to make it happen, the chairman in particular was really for it. Basically there aren't enough venues around locally to realistically make it happen. Winter training and match day venues is a constant struggle for the club to get right and in the end they felt they couldn't do it. There was easily enough talent left on the table to make a 4th competitive team. Many players that would easily have taken places from some of my existing squad members. Not that I'd ever entertain the idea of it.

[JQ]

It appears I've not posted in this thread before, I have mentioned my involvement in kids football on Pistonheads, must have been somewhere else.

I'm into my second year of managing a team. Started last year at U7's by accident, the chap who originally took on the team had too much on his plate which became apparent 5 weeks into the season and I offered to help, which turned into me and another chap taking over.

We're now playing at U8's and having a great season. It's all still a massive learning curve for me at the moment but enjoying every minute.

Sounds like a few of the teams on here aren't too far from us. We played in the Respect League (Manchester) last year and are now playing in The Metro League (Stockport) this year.

[j4ckos mate]

U17
three games in one broken arm
one colossal fight that was like something from tom and jerry
lost two won one!(games that is)

[anniesdad]

fredt said:

The club tried to make it happen, the chairman in particular was really for it. Basically there aren't enough venues around locally to realistically make it happen. Winter training and match day venues is a constant struggle for the club to get right and in the end they felt they couldn't do it. There was easily enough talent left on the table to make a 4th competitive team. Many players that would easily have taken places from some of my existing squad members. Not that I'd ever entertain the idea of it.

Well you can't say you didn't try. I hope the kids find a club where they can play, failing that, it's up to somebody to set one up and get the local council to secure a facility! There's enough money in football to make it happen...