One Of My Favourite Days Of The Year

[DaveP67 is back!]

I coached from U6 through to U12’s the parents always get worse and become toxic, completely the opposite with rugby, that just gets better.

[9goals2hattricks3pen]

That sounds great 923.

A reason our top line players are now so technically good is because of starting out like this I think.

The best will always rise to the top anyway so kids should always have fun for the first couple of years without a result being important.

Winners are born not made, my grandson will probably be like 99.99% of lads and never make it but I’ll wager that he’ll have a will to win like I did whatever level he plays at.

I’d love to watch him on a Sunday morning 15 years from now.

My dad was still watching me and my brother play at 42 and 38……he was mainly taking the p I s s at that point though…..and rightly so!

When I started in the mid 90's our football coaching of kids was in the dark ages way behind what I saw in Holland back in the 70's and France at the time. We were making the kids fit the game not the game fit the kids. Six year olds playing on full sized pitches, full sized goals,footballs that were too big. They couldn't even kick the ball out of the area from a goal kick. But them was the rules!

There has been a revolution started in the 2000's which we are seeing the results of now. I was fortunate to meet up with coach who was brilliant with kids a real visionary. England lost him to the States because they offered him a full time salary and fantastic facilities.Allowing him to go another example of how wrong we were getting things.We have gone from a dearth of creative players to an embarrassment of talent in the last 20 years and yes I think it's because of early years coaching.

Just hope we don't waste it