Some years ago it became apparent that playing competitive football was no longer an option for me. The body took longer to recover from each match; stretching beforehand was seemingly taking almost as long as the first half, and warming-down was no longer desirable but essential. Of course, all footballers—professional and amateur—face a time when a decision to stop playing has to be taken. Fortunately for me there was an alternative: coaching.
During the 1980s I had lived and worked in the United States. At that time it seems that there were far too few coaches with experience of playing the game. With an English accent, I was approached by players at the College where I was working as a Lecturer, and asked to help out with the men's team. I rapidly discovered that there is a huge difference between playing and coaching. I was fortunate to find a coaching clinic which enabled me to start on the coaching ladder, and acquired a coaching license under the auspices of the United States Soccer Federation (as it was then called).
During my decade or so in the United States I was privileged to coach mens' and womens' college teams, as well as mens' and womens' high school teams. In addition, I also had the opportunity to coach on various soccer camps during the Summer months. However, in many ways the highlight was helping to establish soccer programmes for girls in the western Carolinas. In 1987 I was invited by Briggs Sherwood to help start a girls' programme in the Asheville NC area. We started with between 6 and 12 girls playing soccer on recreational basis, and rapidly expanded. Soon there was a selective "travel" team. By the time I moved back to London in the early 1990s there was a full recreational league for girls in the Asheville-Buncombe area. I understand that this now numbers several thousand players, with full-time administrators and coaches! From little acorns might oaks develop.
When I returned to the UK, I was fortunate to be instrumental in helping start the nascent internet football competition, being the founding coach of the Internet Hotspurs. This was a team drawn from subscribers to the Spurs-List, an online forum for Spurs' supporters. The first ever match played was when we travelled to the midlands to play the Leeds team ("internet Lard"), and shortly thereafter we played in the first ever WorldNet: the internet version of the World Cup! The Internet Hotspurs also played in a high profile match against the Internet Gooners, a game played at Clarence Park, St. Albans before a crowd of about a hundred, and covered by .Net magazine.
Currently, I have the honour to coach my son's team, HMH U13 B. One of twenty teams organised by the HMH club, this sees me return very much to my roots in coaching. Back in the late 1970s I was a member of the north London Victoria Boys' and Girls' Club, and I was approached by Nick Sonnenfield to coach a team of U10s. which I did until moving to the USA in 1982. HMH is headed by the same Nick Sonnenfield! As I write I had expected to be coaching away in St. Albans against Harvesters South, but a late phone call informed me that the match was called off due to a frozen, unplayable pitch. Hopefully, my text message to all of the parents of my players got through in time to save them from making an unnecessary journey up the A1.
For me coaching initially was a way to stay in contact with the beautiful game when my playing days were numbered. Something of a vicarious pleasure. However, since then the rewards have become much more manifest. The great relationships a coach makes with his players is something which transcends time and space. The young teenage girls I coached back in Asheville in the 1980s are now grown women with children of their own, many of whom continue to enjoy the beautiful game. Facebook (for example) makes it easy to stay in touch with these wonderful people, and see how the chain continues with new, additional links down the generations. The values of a team sport with room for amazing feats of individualism was well understood by the Victorians, the original founders and codifiers of the game. While the upper echelons of the professional game have lost their way, as have some of the key broadcast personalities, the game remains beautiful because its destiny, as was its history, lies in the hands of the ordinary people who play and coach, often on a purely voluntary basis.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
New Year (2011) musings
With the Xmas and New Year's festivities now over, the UK is slowly returning to its pre-holidays routine. Early this morning, while the sun had yet to rise, I saw children and young people once again in their school uniforms waiting for their school buses, looking glassy eyed in their early morning mental haze. Adults waited for public transport and drove their cars, presumably to work, equally as glassy eyed. The passage from holiday mode to work mode is a slow drift, and it may be a week or more before the leisurely pace of the holiday season gives way to the more usual hectic pace of London life.
The British coalition government has visited upon us its latest offerings to diminish the public debt: rises in VAT and an increase in fuel duties. The idea of looking forward to a better year than the one that has just finished is already taking a battering, and once the haze lifts the British will (suddenly?) realise how much worse off they will be this year than in 2010. Higher taxes, reduced public services, and a slew of supposedly radical reforms (typically ill-thought out and introduced without full and proper consideration) will increase the woe of those of us in employment while doing little (less?) for those out of work. And there is every possibility that the numbers of those out of work will increase significantly in 2011. Naturally, the current government will let us know in no uncertain terms that this is all the result of the profligacy of their predecessors, as governments have done since time immemorial. I suppose there is some degree of reassurance in the constancy of blame-apportionment by British politicians!
So what can we expect differently this year than last? The most immediate difference is that this time last year we were awaiting a UK general election. Unless something quite unforeseen occurs the current government are unlikely to resign and call another election. But their policies will be a sure signpost as to what is to come. For the first time in a generation or two student activism is on the rise. Similarly, we have seen an increased level of trades union opposition to government cuts. Is there any likelihood that this will cause the government to change their mind and alter their policies? Hardly! So, while we are unlikely to see any return to the heady days of industrial and political conflict of the late 1970s, we are already seeing a strong move away from the consensus politics which seem to have been much more the norm in the past 25 years or so. And with the Labour party having selected the wring Miliband brother as its leader, we can expect little by way of effective political opposition.
Africa continues to remain much the same: AIDS continues to run rampant, wars and conflicts remain in place, dictators remain unchallenged, and poverty remains the norm for ordinary, blameless millions of African people. The Middle East remains a tinderbox, where war could break out at any time, especially with the West unwilling (or unable) to rein in the nuclear ambitions of a hostile Iran. It remains increasingly unlikely that the Arab nations will see Israel as anything but a regional state: it has the wrong religion, too much of a European cultural basis, it remains a democracy, and is too convenient as an excuse for all of the flaws in those Arab countries. Any criticism of Arab countries, their politics, or their way of life is always countered with arguments about "the occupation". Were the really a concern for the ordinary Palestinians this could have been dealt with decades ago; but for now "the Palestinian issue" continues to be a good way to distract Arabs away from the internal problems in their own countries, something which has been used by every known dictator for centuries. And, as we might expect a withdrawal of Allied troops from Iraq and Afghanistan in the next year or so, it will be interesting to see if they move to a more normal state of affairs or implode if there is a vacuum!
And what of Europe? The EU has been under economic pressure, with some commentators wondering if the single European currency would survive. And why should it not? There have been worse economic crises faced by countries that that facing us now, and little changes as a result. After all, as the old saying goes: it's the rich what gets the pleasure, and the poor what gets the blame. Have you seen any corrupt politicians or bankers who may have played fast and loose with other people's money down at your local unemployment centre? Of course not. The problem is that politicians often feel they have to be seen to be making laws to restrict risk-taking activities, whether or not that will actually help things in the longer run or not. Most laws enacted nowadays have a tendency to inflict further restrictions on freedom, particularly of the ordinary person. I suppose the main argument in favour of the current UK government is that they have abolished the notion of introducing ID cards!
There is not a great deal to say about the USA: Americans say enough about very little of substance. The US is a very narrow democracy, with little difference between the two main parties to warrant comment. For all of his apparent flaws the President has made strides in areas where previously no progress was able to be made: health in particular. Similarly, everyone is talking about China, but what remains to be said which hasn't been said before? Surely as the rest of the high-income world comes out of recession, China will find itself having to deal with higher global prices and facing consequent inflation at home. Latin America remains relatively stable, with little to note except Brasil's first female president. Congratulations, Dilma!
But I have saved the best for last (almost): David Beckham. It is said that he wishes to come to the English Premier League (EPL) during the US soccer close season. This 35 year old footballing icon could bring his high profile status to an English team, and work on his own fitness. He would be a boon to the younger players of whichever team he joins, as his attitude and talent would rub off (or there would be a positive externality, as Economists call it!). It would raise even further the overseas profile of the EPL, which is already the most-watched League in the world. We all wait with bated breath to see if he will be given permission by his current employers: the L A Galaxy.
Finally, congratulations to the England cricket team on retaining the Ashes. It is always good to get one over on one's fiercest opponents. And for an England cricket team to beat the Aussies so decisively enables me, in common with so many other Englishmen and women, to engage in some very pleasant schadenfreude. May I take this opportunity to wish you all a happy and healthy 2011 in which some of your dreams come true.
The British coalition government has visited upon us its latest offerings to diminish the public debt: rises in VAT and an increase in fuel duties. The idea of looking forward to a better year than the one that has just finished is already taking a battering, and once the haze lifts the British will (suddenly?) realise how much worse off they will be this year than in 2010. Higher taxes, reduced public services, and a slew of supposedly radical reforms (typically ill-thought out and introduced without full and proper consideration) will increase the woe of those of us in employment while doing little (less?) for those out of work. And there is every possibility that the numbers of those out of work will increase significantly in 2011. Naturally, the current government will let us know in no uncertain terms that this is all the result of the profligacy of their predecessors, as governments have done since time immemorial. I suppose there is some degree of reassurance in the constancy of blame-apportionment by British politicians!
So what can we expect differently this year than last? The most immediate difference is that this time last year we were awaiting a UK general election. Unless something quite unforeseen occurs the current government are unlikely to resign and call another election. But their policies will be a sure signpost as to what is to come. For the first time in a generation or two student activism is on the rise. Similarly, we have seen an increased level of trades union opposition to government cuts. Is there any likelihood that this will cause the government to change their mind and alter their policies? Hardly! So, while we are unlikely to see any return to the heady days of industrial and political conflict of the late 1970s, we are already seeing a strong move away from the consensus politics which seem to have been much more the norm in the past 25 years or so. And with the Labour party having selected the wring Miliband brother as its leader, we can expect little by way of effective political opposition.
Africa continues to remain much the same: AIDS continues to run rampant, wars and conflicts remain in place, dictators remain unchallenged, and poverty remains the norm for ordinary, blameless millions of African people. The Middle East remains a tinderbox, where war could break out at any time, especially with the West unwilling (or unable) to rein in the nuclear ambitions of a hostile Iran. It remains increasingly unlikely that the Arab nations will see Israel as anything but a regional state: it has the wrong religion, too much of a European cultural basis, it remains a democracy, and is too convenient as an excuse for all of the flaws in those Arab countries. Any criticism of Arab countries, their politics, or their way of life is always countered with arguments about "the occupation". Were the really a concern for the ordinary Palestinians this could have been dealt with decades ago; but for now "the Palestinian issue" continues to be a good way to distract Arabs away from the internal problems in their own countries, something which has been used by every known dictator for centuries. And, as we might expect a withdrawal of Allied troops from Iraq and Afghanistan in the next year or so, it will be interesting to see if they move to a more normal state of affairs or implode if there is a vacuum!
And what of Europe? The EU has been under economic pressure, with some commentators wondering if the single European currency would survive. And why should it not? There have been worse economic crises faced by countries that that facing us now, and little changes as a result. After all, as the old saying goes: it's the rich what gets the pleasure, and the poor what gets the blame. Have you seen any corrupt politicians or bankers who may have played fast and loose with other people's money down at your local unemployment centre? Of course not. The problem is that politicians often feel they have to be seen to be making laws to restrict risk-taking activities, whether or not that will actually help things in the longer run or not. Most laws enacted nowadays have a tendency to inflict further restrictions on freedom, particularly of the ordinary person. I suppose the main argument in favour of the current UK government is that they have abolished the notion of introducing ID cards!
There is not a great deal to say about the USA: Americans say enough about very little of substance. The US is a very narrow democracy, with little difference between the two main parties to warrant comment. For all of his apparent flaws the President has made strides in areas where previously no progress was able to be made: health in particular. Similarly, everyone is talking about China, but what remains to be said which hasn't been said before? Surely as the rest of the high-income world comes out of recession, China will find itself having to deal with higher global prices and facing consequent inflation at home. Latin America remains relatively stable, with little to note except Brasil's first female president. Congratulations, Dilma!
But I have saved the best for last (almost): David Beckham. It is said that he wishes to come to the English Premier League (EPL) during the US soccer close season. This 35 year old footballing icon could bring his high profile status to an English team, and work on his own fitness. He would be a boon to the younger players of whichever team he joins, as his attitude and talent would rub off (or there would be a positive externality, as Economists call it!). It would raise even further the overseas profile of the EPL, which is already the most-watched League in the world. We all wait with bated breath to see if he will be given permission by his current employers: the L A Galaxy.
Finally, congratulations to the England cricket team on retaining the Ashes. It is always good to get one over on one's fiercest opponents. And for an England cricket team to beat the Aussies so decisively enables me, in common with so many other Englishmen and women, to engage in some very pleasant schadenfreude. May I take this opportunity to wish you all a happy and healthy 2011 in which some of your dreams come true.
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